GIFT  OF 

J^^— *^-«r^ — <*~»-*J\     ' 


A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 


BY 
JOHN  LEARD  DAWSON 


BOSTON 

SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &  COMPANY 
1912 


P . 


COPYBIGHT,   1912 

SHERMAN,  FRENCH  6»  COMPANY 
Printed  in  U.S.  A. 


"Read  and  study  as  if  God  had  spoken  directly 
to  you.  And  do  it  with  as  little  bias  from  the  creeds 
of  the  church  as  is  safe.  This  whole  theological 
world  has  not  yet  been  circumnavigated.  Push  out 
into  the  sea  and  explore  farther  than  anyone  has 
.  .  .  The  Holy  Ghost  is  to-day  in  the  world, 
seeking  for  prophets,  and  grieved  because  he  does  not 
find  as  many  as  he  wants." 

PROF.  L.  T.  TOWNSEND, 
Sacred   Rhetoric   Lectures, 
Boston  University,  1875-6. 


Never  say  you  think  as  other  people  think  simply 
to  please  them,  not  even  when  those  other  people 
have  acquired  the  right  of  calling  themselves  by  such 
names  as  churches,  associations,  synods,  conventions, 
conferences,  assemblies  or  councils.  It  would  be  bad 
for  you  and  not  much  better  for  them.  You  need 
your  own  self-respect  and  the  approval  of  that  God 
who  made  you  a  rational  being  that  you  might  weigh 
and  decide  for  yourself  in  matters  of  every  sort. 
These  people,  too,  need  the  thought  you  are  able  to 
add  to  theirs  quite  as  much  as  you  need  that  which 
they  are  able  to  add  to  yours;  and  the  less  they  feel 
that  need  the  greater  it  is.  Therefore  be  true  to 
your  intellect  that  you  may  be  true  at  once  to  your- 
self and  all  other  men.  Even  though  you  cannot 
deny  that  there  must  be  undetected  error  mixed  with 
your  truth,  be  not  abashed,  but  say  out  your  word 
bravely;  for  the  case  is  no  better  with  them. 

The  old  heresies  did  not  have  salt  enough  in  them 
to  preserve  them  even  to  our  time;  and  there  are  only 
a  few  sincere  things  extant  with  more  of  vanity  and 
less  of  truth  in  them  than  portions  of  the  ancient 
orthodoxies,  they  are  all  so  mixed  with  the  old  pa- 
ganisms. And  are  they  not,  at  the  same  time,  all 
very  distressingly  of  our  own  flesh  and  blood,  too — 
our  very  own? 


PREFACE 

Truth  wins  its  way  slowly.  It  is  well,  however, 
for  us  to  remember  that  it  does  so  surely.  No 
part  of  it  can  always  remain  either  covered  up 
or  lost.  It  is  now  established  that  God's  general 
method  in  creation  was  that  of  those  long  upward 
processes  which  we  indicate  by  the  word  evolu- 
tion; and  if  the  interpretations  represented  by 
this  volume  are  correct,  it  will  eventually  be  every- 
where confessed  that  his  method  in  redemption  is 
the  same.  The  aim  in  creation  was  to  bring  mat- 
ter to  its  highest  possibilities  by  allying  it  with 
the  vital,  the  moral  and  the  spiritual,  as  these 
exist  in  man ;  and  the  goal  of  redemption  will  be 
attained  when  man  reaches  that  summit  where 
the  spiritual  in  him  will  assimilate  all  else  to  itself, 
causing  even  his  coarse  clay  to  disappear  in  the 
process.  Indeed  this  work  might,  not  too  unsuit- 
ably, have  been  entitled  "Evolution  through 
Christ." 

The  Twentieth  Century  version  of  the  New 
Testament  has  been  used,  not  because  it  was 
regarded  as  absolutely  correct  at  every  point, 
but  because  it  is  in  present  day  English,  and 
because  by  using  it  in  place  of  improved  transla- 
tions which  he  himself  might  have  attempted,  the 
author  could  give  all  his  readers  the  opportunity 


PREFACE 

of  verifying  his  quotations.  The  Old  Testament 
passages,  on  the  other  hand,  have,  as  a  rule,  been 
drawn  from  the  English  revision  of  1885. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  INTRODUCTION       .......        1 

II  GOD'S   RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  MAN'S  SIN     20 

III  JESUS   AS   A   SIGN 34 

IV  THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS 45 

V  THE  CONSCIOUSNESS^  OF  JESUS     ...      66 

VI  JESUS   AND    THE    H;OLY    SPIRIT        ...        85 

VII  THE   SINLESSNESS   OF    JESUS       .      .      .    103 

VIII  JESUS  THE  SOCIAL  REFORMER     ,      .      .117 

IX  JESUS  THE   REVEALER  OF   THE   FATHER  136 

X  THE   KINGDOM  AND  CHURCH  OF   JESUS  152 

XI  JESUS  THE  REDEEMER  OF  His  CHURCH  168 

XII  JESUS    AND    THE    ATONEMENT        .         .         .186 

XIII  JESUS   AND    THE    SACRIFICIAL   SYSTEM        .     203 

XIV  JESUS  AND  THE   SENSE   OF  SlN        .         .         .     232 

XV  JESUS  THE  BEARER  AWAY  OF  SIN      .      .    246 

XVI  JESUS  THE  MEDIATOR  AND  INTERCESSOR  261 

XVII  JESUS  AND  BIBLICAL  ETHICS     .      .      .   279 

XVIII  JESUS  AND  THE   PERFECT  ETHICAL  CODE    294 

XIX  THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  JESUS     .      .      .    301 

XX  JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  FROM  DEATH      .    321 

XXI  JESUS   AND   NATIONAL   DESTINY       .      .    350 

XXII  JESUS  THE  COMPLETE  SAVIOR      .      .      .    369 

XXIII  CONCLUSION     .      .      .      .      .      »      .      .   388 

INDEX  .   422 


INTRODUCTION 

It  is  safe  to  assume  that  righteousness  is  every- 
where the  same  in  its  character  and  its  operations, 
that  it  never  exists  apart  from  love,  and  that  men 
can  and  do  detect  its  presence  where  it  is  dis- 
played and  its  absence  where  it  is  not  displayed; 
and  that  this  is  as  true  when  we  come  to  the  con- 
sideration of  theories  touching  God's  dealings 
with  our  race  as  it  is  in  matters  of  less  scope  and 
moment. 

In  the  pages  which  follow  I  have  used  both  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  as  books  composed  of 
writings  which  represent  the  ideas  of  God  and  his 
righteousness  which  existed  in  the  minds  of  lead- 
ing thinkers  of  the  Israelitish  race  at  various 
times  during  several  centuries  of  the  history  of 
that  remarkable  people.  These  ideas  I  have 
regarded  as  partly  true  and  partly  false.  I  have 
taken  the  ground  that  the  false  was  very  largely 
the  contribution  of  the  priests,  who  were  guilty  of 
every  sort  of  greed  and  oppression ;  while  the  true 
was  set  forth  in  a  growingly  worthy  manner  by 
the  prophets,  who  scorned  all  that  was  base  and 
sordid  and  unfair,  preached  high  ideals  in  the 
name  of  God,  and  accepted  ruin,  torture  and  even 


2  A  iUACE'S  REDEMPTION 

death,  rather  than  degrade  their  manhood  by 
unworthy  concessions  to  priestly,  popular,  or 
royal  power  or  prejudice. 

I  have  assumed  that  all  teaching,  which  is  gen- 
uinely Christian,  must  not  only  accept  but  also 
incorporate,  everything  in  the  way  of  verified 
science  which  reaches  us,  whether  from  the  pen  of 
a  Darwin  or  a  Wallace,  an  unbelieving  Haeckel, 
with  his  4000  radiolaria  in  the  proof,  or  the  Dar- 
winian Jesuit,  Father  Wasman,  with  his  4000 
species  of  ants.  But  I  have  not  assumed  that 
the  final  word  of  science  on  the  question  of  origins 
has  yet  been  spoken.  I  have  even  questioned 
whether  either  the  word  God  or  the  word  Nature 
taken  by  itself,  is  the  one  the  use  of  which  is  cal- 
culated to  throw  most  light  upon  the  various 
phases  and  stages  of  world  formation,  or  the 
whole  history  of  our  own  planet. 

I  may  cite  here  one  of  the  latest  words  of  the 
great  Ernest  Haeckel.  On  page  94  of  his  "Last 
Words  on  Evolution"  he  says: 

"We  may  instance,  as  a  peculiarly  interesting  fact 
in  the  psychic  life  of  the  unicellular  radiolaria,  the 
extraordinary  power  of  memory  in  them.  (The  ital- 
ics are  mine.)  The  relative  constancy  with  which 
the  4000  species  transmit  the  orderly  and  often 
complex  form  of  their  protective  flinty  structure 
from  generation  to  generation  can  only  be  explained 
by  admitting  in  the  builders,  the  invisible  plasma- 
molecules  of  the  pseudopodia,  a  fine  'plastic  sense  of 
distance,'  and  a  tenacious  recollection  of  the  archi- 


INTRODUCTION  '  '$ 

tectural  power  of  their  fathers.  The  fine,  formless 
plasma-threads  are  always  building  afresh  the  same 
delicate  flinty  shells  with  an  artistic  trellis-work,  and 
with  protective  radiating  needles  and  supports  al- 
ways at  the  same  points  of  their  surface." 

Continuing  he  refers  to  Ewald  Hering's  word 
concerning  memory  as  "a  general  function  of 
organized  matter."  And  this  word  of  Hering's 
has  certainly  a  very  wide  application,  if  memory 
is  involved  in  all  repetitions  of  a  given  act,  which 
are  to  be  witnessed  in  the  successive  generations  of 
given  species  of  living  organisms. 

Memory  of  this  sort  is  to  be  found  in  the  vege- 
table as  well  as  in  the  animal  world.  It  stands 
revealed,  too,  every  time  a  crystal  takes  shape  or 
a  chemical  combination  is  effected.  Hydrogen  is 
never  exploded  in  the  air  without  remembering  to 
take  up  one  unit  of  oxygen  for  every  two  of  its 
own,  and  so  to  form  water.  Water  itself  never 
forgets  to  expand  when  freezing.  In  short  each 
element  has  a  perfect  memory  touching  its  own 
ways  and  a  perfect  memory  also  for  the  possibil- 
ities of  other  elements  in  relation  to  itself.  When 
we  come  to  chemical  marriage  we  find  each  ele- 
ment perfectly  schooled  in  the  allowable  and  the 
forbidden,  and  never  witness  a  case  of  miscegena- 
tion, though  perhaps  we  do  see  some  instances  of 
mismating,  which  are  speedily  followed  by  a 
loosening  or  a  complete  severance  of  the  tie.  We 
never  find  the  sweet  briar  mistaking  its  peculiar 
fragance  for  that  of  the  hedge  rose,  nor  the  fir 


• 


':'  iA  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 


putting  on  the  garments  of  the  spruce,  nor  the 
birch  those  of  the  maple.  And  the  tree  which 
lives  its  life  altogether  alone  from  the  start  has 
as  good  a  memory  as  the  one  that  is  in  the  way  of 
getting  lessons  from  its  elders.  The  truth  is 
that  memory,  in  the  sense  in  which  these  great 
scientists  have  used  it,  is  common  to  all  matter, 
whether  organized  or  otherwise — it  is  as  truly  the 
inheritance  of  the  element  hydrogen  as  of  the 
radiolaria. 

How  shall  we  account  for  this?  Laws  are 
only  constantly  applied  rules  or  forces  steadily 
used  in  given  directions.  What  or  who  applies 
them?  Nature?  Nature  is  everything  in  gen- 
eral and  nothing  in  particular.  Haeckel's  latest 
word  is  "that  the  highest  concept,  God,  lies  in 
those  laws  themselves — those  great  eternal,  iron 
laws,  based  upon  the  very  nature  of  things, 
according  to  which  the  entire  world  proceeds." 

We  have  three  things  here,  or  two  things  and 
a  person.  We  have  "the  great  eternal  iron  laws," 
"the  very  nature  of  things  upon  which  they  are 
based"  and  "lying  in  those  laws  themselves  the 
highest  concept,  God" ;  and  it  would  seem  that 
while  "God"  is  but  "the  highest  concept,"  or  idea, 
of  some  human  mind,  "the  great  eternal  iron 
laws"  manage  to  carry  on  the  work  of  a  person 
infinite  in  every  highest  attribute  known  to  man, 
upheld,  as  these  laws  continuously  are,  by  "the 
very  nature  of  things" !  Among  their  other 
achievements  these  "great  eternal  iron  laws"  put 


INTRODUCTION  5 

memory  into  things  animate  and  inanimate,  in 
such  a  triumphant  way  that  they  simply  never 
forget!  This  is  a  stupendous  achievement.  But 
while  one  agrees  at  once  that  the  thing  has  been 
done,  one  pauses  before  the  description  of  the 
doer  and  asks  himself  whether,  with  God  and 
great  eternal  iron  laws  to  choose  between,  he 
would  not  have  changed  God  from  "the  highest 
concept"  to  an  infinite  person,  and  regarded  him 
as  doing  everything  according  to  the  counsel  of 
his  own  will  in  the  irresistible  manner  suggested 
by  "the  great  eternal  iron  laws"  of  our  scientist. 
That  done,  God  would  also  appear  in  the  case  as 
himself  "the  very  nature  of  things." 

This  is  what  I  have  done.  And,  besides,  I  have 
taken  the  liberty  of  suggesting  that  it  is  as  Life 
that  God  has  been  producing  and  fashioning  all 
things  from  the  first.  Laws  are  dead  iron  things, 
Nature  is  vague  and  indefinite,  but,  as  all  men 
know,  Life  has  in  it  intelligence,  with  both  the 
memory  and  the  imagination,  of  which  so  many 
evidences  are  to  be  found  by  the  student  of  things 
past  and  present  on  this  planet  and  elsewhere. 
Life  possesses  also,  as  every  man  knows,  Volition 
and  Conscience.  Above  all,  it  possesses  love. 
Surely  it  is  upon  this  Life,  as  the  very  nature  of 
things,  that  the  laws  are  based,  according  to 
which  the  entire  world  proceeds.  Every  evolu- 
tionist knows  that  the  movement  of  things  has 
been  upward  from  the  start  and  that  it  is  upward 
still.  The  higher  characteristics  of  Life  are  con- 


6  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

stantlj  subjugating  to  their  uses  the  lower;  and 
these  on  their  part  are  not  crippled  or  crushed, 
but  exalted  and  glorified  in  the  process. 

The  blind  man's  concept  of  the  central  body  of 
our  planetary  system  is  not  the  only  sun  there  is. 
But  for  the  existence  from  of  old  of  that  vast 
center  of  attraction  and  source  of  light  and  heat, 
neither  he  nor  his  concept  would  ever  have  found 
a  place  on  this  planet.  "God,  the  highest  con- 
cept," is  but  a  testimony  to  the  existence  of  God, 
the  foundation  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  builder 
of  all  that  is.  To  do  as  Haeckel  does  and  make 
"great  eternal  iron  laws"  the  vast  Creator  of  all 
things,  is  to  ask  men  to  believe  that  nature  places 
law  above  personality.  But  this  is  an  achievement 
contrary  to  all  human  experience  and,  therefore, 
miraculous.  If  one  must  have  miracles,  he  need 
not  be  blamed  if  he  prefers  to  trace  them  back 
to  the  will  of  an  infinite  person,  for  this  does  not 
contradict  experience.  Moreover  the  infinite  per- 
son simply  must  do  surpassing  things,  if  he  acts 
at  all,  and  a  worthy  personality  can  neither  be 
inactive  nor  fail  to  do  deeds  worthy  of  himself. 
These  latter  conclusions  also  are  based  upon 
experience.  It  was  the  self-manifestation  of  the 
all  embracing  Personality  that  produced  "the 
highest  concept."  This  statement,  if  I  under- 
stand Haeckel's  latest  positions,  is  one  which  he 
himself  might  not  dispute. 

No  one  need  entertain  any  misgivings  touching 
inspiration  and  revelation.  That  matter  is  sim- 


INTRODUCTION  7 

ply  a  question  of  demand  and  supply  in  a  world 
which  science  has  uncovered  before  our  eyes  in 
such  a  way  that  we  see  in  it  strength  forever 
revealing  itself  in  all  loving  helpfulness,  and  so 
making  weakness  more  and  more  savingly  ac- 
quainted with  it.  The  parent  birds  with  their  eggs 
and  then  their  fledgelings,  the  whole  story  of 
family  life  and  home-training,  in  our  own  race, 
and  the  delight  men  take  in  making  themselves 
known,  in  every  uplifting  way  possible,  to  their 
animal  servants  and  pets,  till  these  actually 
acquire  the  power  of  intelligently  and  gladly 
co-operating  with  them  in  carrying  out  their 
desires,  all  exist  as  so  much  standing  testimony 
to  this  fact.  That  which  appears  upon  the  sur- 
face of  things  testifies  concerning  that  which  lives 
at  their  center.  Life  is  the  same  from  the  gyrat- 
ing electron  onward.  The  center  of  the  atom 
reveals  itself  to  every  electron  of  the  group  by 
holding  it  safely  in  leash.  So  God  reveals  him- 
self wherever  conscience  is  allied  with  thought  and 
volition  by  holding  men  hard  to  himself  as  the 
Right  and  the  Good.  Personal  themselves  they 
cannot  but  see  him  as  also  personal,  and  the 
source  of  personality  in  themselves,  nor  fail  to 
realize  that  he  is  pouring  his  own  thought  and 
purpose  into  them  more  and  more.  If  this  is  not 
true  of  absolutely  every  man,  it  is  certainly  true 
of  the  race  taken  as  a  whole. 

I  have  passed  by  the  question  of  the  author- 
ship of  the  various  portions  of  the  New  Testa- 


8  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

ment  as  one  of  literary  and  historical,  rather  than 
theological  or  practical  importance;  and  I  have 
shown  my  confidence  in  the  general  soundness  of 
Harnack's  most  recent  position  as  to  their  dates. 
The  most  important  of  them  historically  seem  to 
me  to  have  been  written,  eschatological  sections 
and  all,  prior  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in 
70  A.  D. 

My  exegesis  of  some  of  the  eschatological  sec- 
tions themselves  will  reveal  a  departure  from  the 
teachings  of  both  the  Pre-millennarian  and  Post- 
millennarian  schools.  The  New  Testament 
writers  believed  in  the  immanent  Christ  as  they 
believed  in  the  immanent  God.  It  will  be  found, 
too,  that  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  is  viewed  as 
only  an  incident  in  connection  with  the  triumph 
of  Life  in  its  highest  manifestations.  These 
changes  in  New  Testament  interpretation  have 
for  years  seemed  to  me  inevitable,  if  we  are  ever 
really  to  know  what  it  was  these  writers  indicated 
by  the  terms  which  they  employed  in  this  connec- 
tion. 

And,  finally,  as  to  the  matter  of  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  race  itself,  the  thought  of  the  past  has 
seemed  to  me  wholly  inadequate.  The  question 
is  not  one  of  slight  importance.  The  Fall,  how- 
ever interpreted,  is  a  racial  fact.  Through  it 
men  became,  or  become,  self-centered,  selfish,  God- 
renouncing,  with  their  careers  sadly  soiled  by  sins 
and  crimes,  and  their  consciences  uneasy. 

The  Son  of  God  came  to  buy  men  back  from  all 


INTRODUCTION  9 

this.  To  buy  back  whom?  The  race  as  a  race, 
or  only  a  limited  number  of  individual  men  and 
women?  To  buy  back  how?  Completely,  or 
only  in  part?  To  buy  back  where?  Here,  while 
the  race  still  lives  its  earthly  life?  Or  will  that 
full  redemption  be  experienced  only  through  the 
conversion  of  our  flesh  to  spirit,  and  our  removal 
as  a  race  to  some  better  world  than  this?  Would 
this  be  a  genuine  redemption  at  all  ?  Or  are  we  to 
abandon  the  doctrine  that  the  Divine  ideal  for  our 
race,  which  the  Fall  interfered  with,  or  at  least 
postponed,  was  that  it  should  be  introduced  to  a 
long  and  unbrokenly  hply  career  of  upward  pro- 
gress here  upon  the  earth? 

Present  day  thought  rejects  the  Calvinian  ioc- 
trines  of  predestination  and  a  limited  atonement. 
We  declare  that  it  was  never  the  purpose  of  God 
to  save  only  a  fraction  of  mankind,  that  Christ 
died  for  all,  that  the  gospel  message  is  for  all 
alike,  and  that  the  Holy  Spirit  moves  in  equal 
love  upon  all  hearts.  We  affirm  that  the  rea^n 
why  one  man  is  won  to  righteousness  while  nis 
brother  perseveres  in  sin,  finds  its  true  answer 
in  the  freedom  of  the  human  will.  We  are  sure, 
that  is  to  say,  that  God's  purpose  to  save  touches 
our  race  as  a  whole.  But  we  are  equally  sure, 
too,  that  to  this  day  that  purpose  is  far 
from  being  uniformly  victorious.  Men  still  love 
darkness  rather  than  light,  and  live  and  die 
impenitent.  Human  depravity  is  still  a  fact 
which  cannot  be  ignored,  for  it  constantly  reveals 


10  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

itself  in  many  detestable,  as  well  as  ordinary  sins 
and  crimes.  What  then?  Is  God's  redeeming 
purpose  and  plan  never  to  achieve  more  than  a 
partial  victory  on  this  planet?  Is  the  race  to 
remain  substantially  what  it  is  now  to  the  very 
end?  Is  the  question  of  the  seeker  of  salvation 
always  to  be,  How  may  I  learn  so  to  live  in  this 
world  as  to  get  safely  out  of  it?  Is  this  world 
never  to  become  a  universal  school  for  the 
cultivation  of  universal  holiness?  Is  it  al- 
ways to  be  just  a  hospital,  in  which  some  men, 
and  some  men  only,  will  recover  from  the  malady 
of  sin,  and  go  forth  to  the  unending  enjoyment 
elsewhere  of  moral  and  spiritual  health? 

These  questions  are  not  of  slight  importance. 
They  really  mean  this.  Is  there  to  be  a  redemp- 
tion of  the  race  at  all,  or  only  a  redemption  out 
of  the  race  of  a  limited  number,  from  generation 
to  generation,  including  the  last?  Up  to  the 
present  this  is  what  has  really  taken  place.  Only 
some  out  of  each  generation  attain  to  a  life 
that  is  worthy,  while  vast  numbers  never  learn  to 
even  nobly  aspire.  How  are  things  to  be  in  the 
future?  Practically  as  they  are  now  in  every 
respect?  Or  are  they  slowly  and  steadily  to 
improve,  till  a  day  dawns  in  which  sin  shall  have 
given  place  to  holiness  in  every  individual  of  the 
generation  then  alive  upon  our  planet?  In  short, 
is  sin  to  live  on  here  as  long  as  our  race  does,  or 
will  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  persevere  in  his  vic- 
tories over  it,  till  he  has  utterly  exterminated  it 


INTRODUCTION  11 

and  introduced  our  race  to  its  spiritual  Eden  of 
holy  joyous  consecration  to  God? 

By  our  manner  of  answering  these  questions 
we  say  whether  we  believe  in  the  actual  redemp- 
tion of  our  race,  as  an  earthly  one,  or  not. 
Believing  that  the  Redeemer  came,  poured  out  his 
soul  in  death  for  the  race,  was  raised  from  the 
dead,  exalted  to  God's  right  hand  and  gifted  with 
all  power  on  behalf  of  the  race,  is  one  thing;  and 
believing  that  he  will  accomplish  his  task  in  any 
complete  way  is  quite  another.  The  complete 
salvation  of  the  race  from  the  stand- 
point of  Glory  in  heaven  could  be  accomplished 
only  through  the  final  recovery  from  sin  and  suf- 
fering to  holiness  and  blessedness  of  every  mem- 
ber of  it,  from  the  first  man  down  to  the  last  of 
his  descendants — the  recovery  from  sin  and  suf- 
fering of  every  Cain  as  well  as  every  Abel,  of 
every  Jezebel  as  well  as  every  Elijah.  We  think 
we  have  no  sure  ground  in  either  scripture  or 
experience  for  such  a  doctrine  as  this.  But  tta 
question  before  us  now  is  whether  there  is  any 
scriptural  basis  for  the  conclusion  that  a  time  is 
coming  when  our  race,  as  it  will  then  be  found 
upon  the  earth,  will  stand  before  God  separated 
from  all  its  outward  sins  and  inward  depravities, 
together  with  all  the  disastrous  consequences  now 
associated  with  these,  and  fulfilling  in  every 
respect  its  high  destiny,  having  been  raised  at 
last  through  the  toil  of  the  redeeming  ages  to  the 
very  image  and  likeness  of  God. 


12  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Jesus  taught  his  disciples  to  pray  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  Kingdom  of  God — "Thy  will  be  done 
on  earth,  as  in  heaven."  Is  that  prayer  ever  to 
receive  its  full  answer?  Is  there  one  in  heaven 
who  does  not  do  God's  will  completely  and  gladly? 
And  will  the  prayer  be  fully  answered  as  long  as 
there  is  one  left  upon  the  earth  who  does  not  do 
that  will  in  the  same  manner? 

Such  a  redemption  of  our  race  as  that  indicated 
above  would  include  three  things  in  particular. 
The  first  of  these  would  be  the  entire  removal  from 
the  earth  of  all  willful  opposers  of  that  right- 
eousness which  the  Son  of  God  came  to  make  uni- 
versal. This  entire  removal  of  the  wicked  whether 
accomplished  through  converting  grace  or  the 
slow  operations  of  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fit,  or  of  both  together  working  along  parallel 
lines,  would  eventually  place  our  earth  in  the  sole 
possession  of  the  righteously  disposed.  I  have 
used  the  words  "righteously  disposed"  instead  of 
the  word  righteous,  because  all  round  righteous- 
ness of  life  always  means  so  much  more  than  right 
dispositions,  implying,  as  it  does,  right  knowledge 
and  the  necessary  moral  strength  at  the  var- 
ious points  of  human  activity — two  things  in 
which  the  Christian  of  to-day,  like  his  brother  of 
other  times,  displays  an  all  too  evident  lack. 

The  second  thing,  therefore,  which  the  redemp- 
tion of  our  race  must  include  is  its  full  develop- 
ment in  all  that  pertains  to  intellectual  and  voli- 
tional activity  along  the  lines  of  right  conduct. 


INTRODUCTION  13 

The  race  must  be  brought  to  the  point  where  each 
member  of  it  will  always  know  the  very  thing  he 
ought  to  do,  and  will  always  be  prompt  in  his 
response  to  the  voice  of  each  duty  he  meets.  And 
since  the  body,  and  particularly  the  brain,  is  the 
instrument  both  of  the  intellect  and  the  will,  the 
redemption  of  the  race  must  include  such  thor- 
ough expansion  or  repair  of  that  instrument  as 
will  fully  fit  it  for  the  highest  service  it  can  be 
called  upon  to  render.  It  must  be  brought  up 
to  perfection  for  the  acquisition  and  retention  of 
knowledge,  on  the  one  hand,  and  for  carrying  out 
the  behests  of  the  will,  on  the  other.  Disease 
must  disappear  and  physical  readiness,  zest  and 
courage  must  become  universal  and  triumphant 
among  men.  There  can  be  no  perfect  moral  or 
spiritual  health  in  a  physically  diseased  race. 
Physical  disease,  as  long  as  it  continues,  must 
impair  that  health  by  weakening  the  understand- 
ing or  the  will  or  both. 

All  power  in  heaven  and  in  earth  has  been  given 
to  Jesus  in  the  interests  of  his  kingdom.  He 
reigns  and  must  "reign  as  king  until  God  has  put 
all  his  enemies  under  his  feet."  As  king  he  is  also 
Judge  of  all  men,  with  full  authority  to  gather 
from  his  kingdom  all  that  hinders  and  those  who 
live  in  sin  (Matt.  13:41).  On  the  other  hand 
there  are  no  heights  of  holiness  to  which  he  is 
unable  to  show  the  feet  of  his  people  the  way. 
And  while  he  was  here  in  the  flesh,  when  did  he 
ever  meet  disease  and  death  without  delivering 


14  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

their  victims  if  these  victims  themselves,  or  their 
friends,  were  willing  to  accept  his  aid? 

It  will  be  ours  now  to  discover,  if  we  can,  how 
far  and  by  what  means  the  apostolic  church 
believed  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  would  work  out  the 
redemption  of  our  race  here  upon  the  earth.  But 
a  word  on  the  genuine  interpretation  of  scripture 
ought  to  precede  this  search. 

When  we  approach  the  Bible  asking  what  its 
teachings  on  any  matter  are,  there  are  some 
things  which  we  ought  particularly  to  remember. 
Its  books  and  letters  are  not  detached  literature, 
which  might  have  been  produced  anywhere  and  at 
any  time  in  the  world's  history.  Each  was  writ- 
ten with  the  definite  end  in  view  of  instructing 
and  helping  some  particular  people  or  class,  which 
existed  at  the  time  its  writer  did  his  work.  Every 
phrase  and  sentence  and  paragraph  had  a  definite 
meaning  for  the  writer,  which  he  was  seeking  to 
convey  to  the  minds  of  those  who  were  to  be  his 
first  readers.  Our  first  question,  therefore,  to- 
day must  be — What  did  John  or  Peter  or  James 
try  to  teach  the  men  of  his  generation  by  means 
of  this  or  that  paragraph  or  sentence  or  phrase? 
And  until  we  have  made  this  discovery  we  have 
nothing  on  which  to  rely  for  present  use. 

There  are  no  second  meanings.  The  first  sense 
is  the  true  sense  and  the  only  one.  The  language 
used  to  describe  one  event  may  chance  to  describe 
quite  accurately  more  than  one  event  of  a  like 
sort  which  may  occur  later ;  and  it  may  be  quoted 


INTRODUCTION  15 

for  the  purpose  centuries  or  millenniums  after  it 
was  first  penned.  But  no  sober-minded  man 
would  assert  that  the  earlier  writer  must  there- 
fore have  foreseen  every  incident  which  his  lan- 
guage was  fitted  to  portray.  There  may  be  second 
or  third  or  even  many  applications  of  given 
descriptive  statements,  but,  let  me  repeat  it,  there 
are  no  second  meanings.  The  statements  of  scrip- 
ture are  not  things  to  juggle  with.  Each  was 
penned  for  the  one  purpose  of  conveying  to  other 
minds  than  that  of  the  writer,  some  truth  or  fact 
which  he  wished  the  men  of  his  own  time  to  know. 

"Our  Salvation  is  nearer  now  than  when  we 
accepted  the  Faith.  The  night  is  almost  gone; 
the  day  is  near."  (Rom.  13 :11.)  What  "Salva- 
tion" and  what  "day"  did  Paul  have  in  his  mind 
when  he  wrote  these  words?  That  is  the  first 
question  for  me  to  answer,  and  if  I  cannot  answer 
it  as  he  and  the  Roman  Christians  would  have 
done,  I  must  confess  that  I  know  nothing  about 
the  meaning  of  the  passage.  I  may  use  the  lan- 
guage of  it  to  describe  some  situation,  past,  pres- 
ent, or  future,  which  I  may  have  in  my  mind,  but 
I  get  at  its  meaning  only  as  I  come  to  know  what 
the  situation  was  which  Paul  had  in  his  mind 
when  he  penned  it. 

The  New  Testament  writers  themselves  knew 
how  to  harness  the  words  of  earlier  authors  to 
the  service  of  their  own  pens.  Examples  are 
easily  found.  The  last  nine  verses  of  the  sec- 
ond chapter  of  Matthew  present  three  of  them — 


16  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

"Out  of  Egypt  I  called  my  Son;" 

"A  voice  was  heard  in  Ramah, 
Weeping   and    much    lamentation; 
Rachel,  weeping  for  her  children, 
Refused  all  comfort  because  they  were  not;" 

and 

"He   will   be    called   a    Nazarene." 

The  first  of  these  passages  was  taken  from 
Hosea  11 :1.  That  prophet,  however,  had  no 
thought  of  the  coming  of  the  child  Jesus  up  from 
Egypt  when  he  wrote  it.  On  the  contrary  his 
look  was  backward.  His  attention  was  fixed  upon 
a  most  important  event  in  the  early  history  of  his 
people,  when  Jehovah  called  them  as  his  "Son" 
out  of  Egypt.  Still  the  words  were  suited  to 
describe  precisely  the  event  in  the  life  of  Jesus 
which  Matthew  was  recording,  and  because  they 
came  up  in  his  mind  as  he  wrote,  he  used  them  for 
that  purpose.  Similarly  the  language  which  he 
quoted  in  connection  with  his  description  of 
Herod's  slaughter  of  the  innocents,  and  which 
shows  us  Rachel,  the  dearly  beloved  wife  of  Israel, 
who  had  been  buried  at  Bethlehem,  weeping  for 
her  children  there  ruthlessly  put  to  death,  and 
refusing  all  comfort,  was  applied  by  him  in  a 
very  telling  way.  At  the  same  time  we  would 
make  a  very  great  mistake  if  we  should  assume 
that  Jeremiah  wrote  them  foreseeing  Herod's  act. 
The  one  thing  the  prophet  had  in  his  mind  was  the 


INTRODUCTION  17 

snatching  away  of  Rachel's  children  into  the  expa- 
triation of  the  Babylonish  captivity. 

Finally,  "He  shall  be  called  a  Nazarene"  is  not 
a  quotation  at  all,  but  an  ingenious  adaptation. 
The  thing  Matthew  did  here  was  this.  He  put  an 
historic  statement  in  the  future  tense  that  he 
might  read  into  it  a  wealth  of  past  prophecy. 
None  of  Israel's  seers  had  foretold  that  Jesus 
would  become  a  resident  or  citizen  of  Nazareth. 
But  they  had  declared  that  Jehovah's  anointed 
one  would  be  despised.  They  had  also  said  that 
he  would  be  called  Netzer,  a  branch,  or  germ,  or 
sprout;  and  the  root  portion  of  the  name  Naza- 
reth was  Netzer  or  Natzer.  With  this  fact  and 
one  or  both  of  these  prophecies  in  his  mind  Mat- 
thew read  their  sense  into  the  word,  and  declared 
that  the  prophets  had  said  "He  shall  be  called  a 
Nazarene,"  a  despised  one  and,  at  the  same  time, 
the  one  germ  or  sprout  of  our  race's  coming 
greatness.  But,  as  I  have  stated,  no  prophet 
had  ever  predicted  that  Jesus  would  reside  in  the 
town  of  Nazareth,  which  is  the  fact  Matthew  was 
recording. 

In  getting  at  the  meaning  of  the  scriptures,  as 
of  all  other  writings,  the  one  question  which  must 
never  be  lost  sight  of  is — What  did  the  writer 
have  in  mind  when  he  penned  his  words?  and  not — 
What  application  can  I  make  of  them? — or — 
What  sense  can  I  read  into  them?  In  the  pages 
which  follow  I  shall  strive  to  keep  this  fact  always 
in  view,  and  when  dealing  with  such  phrases  as 


18  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

"the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man,"  "the  close  of 
the  age"  and  "the  last  days,"  shall  seek  first  of 
all  to  discover  what  the  great  teachers  who  used 
them  tried  to  convey  to  the  minds  of  their  hearers 
and  readers  by  their  means. 

I  shall  also  keep  in  view  another  fact,  namely, 
that  a  progress  in  revelation  is  as  evident  on  the 
pages  of  the  books  of  the  Bible,  as  the  corres- 
ponding progress  in  knowledge  and  ideas  is  in 
the  general  literature  of  the  world.  Men's 
thoughts  of  God  were  kept  widening.  In  some 
cases  this  was  as  true  of  the  individual  teacher  as 
it  was  of  the  generations  that  succeeded  each 
other.  Paul  on  the  subject  of  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead,  and  the  corresponding  change  which  he 
believed  would  take  place  in  the  living,  until  it 
finally  transformed  nature  itself,  is  a  striking 
example  of  this.  To  properly  interpret  the  Bible 
therefore,  on  any  theme,  it  is  necessary  not  only 
to  collate  the  passages  which  deal  with  that  point, 
but  also  to  arrange  them  in  the  order  in  which 
they  were  written,  beginning  with  the  earliest. 

"He  has  made  an  end  of  Death,  and  has  brought 
Life  and  Immortality  to  light  by  that  Good  News, 
of  which  I  was  myself  appointed  a  Herald  and 
Apostle"  (2nd  Tim.  1:10,  11)  is  a  word  Paul 
wrote  of  his  Lord  in  the  last  letter  that  ever  came 
from  his  pen  probably.  But  who  can  hope  to  say 
what  lengths  and  breadths  and  depths  and  heights 
these  words  had  for  Paul  himself  unless  he  will 
study  every  earlier  word  of  his  upon  the  subject, 


INTRODUCTION  19 

beginning  with  the  first,  which  is  contained  in  1 
Thess.  4:13-5:3,  and  was  written  perhaps  four- 
teen years  or  more  previously.  It  is  all  too  easy 
to  twist  the  scriptures  to  one's  own  undoing  as  a 
reasonable  being.  Indeed  it  would  be  well  for  us 
if  every  time  we  take  the  Bible  into  our  hands, 
we  would  very  devoutly  say  to  ourselves — "Here 
there  is  need  for  discernment"  (Rev.  13:10). 


II 

GOD'S  RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  MAN'S  SIN 

It  is  too  late  a  year  of  our  Lord  in  which  to 
entertain  the  suggestion  that  there  may  be  some 
defect  in  the  divine  righteousness.  No  one,  how- 
ever, need  shrink  from  the  idea  that  there  may  be 
something  defective  in  his  own  notions  concern- 
ing that  righteousness.  It  may  even  be  desirable 
that  most  of  us  should  assume  that  there  is. 

More  than  thirty  years  ago  a  preacher  so 
young  that  he  was  still  looking  forward  to  his 
ordination  dealt  with  a  phase  of  our  subject  in 
these  words : — 

"Some  scientists  have  taken  the  ground  that  man 
can  originate  living  organisms.  They  have  said,  Get 
the  right  kinds  of  matter  together  in  the  right  pro- 
portions, then  subject  them  to  the  necessary  condi- 
tions and  operations,  and  living  creatures  will  result. 
More  than  once  the  experiment  has  been  tried.  More 
than  once,  too,  men  have  claimed  success — only  to 
own  to  failure  afterwards,  however.  We  are  not 
yet  able  to  turn  dead  matter  into  living.  We  can- 
not manipulate  life,  any  more  than  we  can  weigh 
it  with  our  scales  or  comprehend  it. 

"But  imagine,  now,  that  it  is  possible  for  men 
versed  in  science  to  make  living  creatures  out  of  dead 


GOD'S  RIGHTEOUSNESS  21 

matter.  Suppose  Mr.  Huxley  able  to  do  this.  Sup- 
pose him  able  to  create  beings  of  many  sorts,  and 
that  it  is  in  his  power  to  produce  two  creatures,  a 
male  and  a  female,  from  whom  would  spring  a  numer- 
ous race.  Suppose  also  that  Mr.  Huxley  has  the 
power  of  seeing  all  down  the  future,  and  of  know- 
ing all  this  race  would  do  and  all  that  would  happen 
to  it  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  its  existence. 
Suppose,  too,  that  he  sees  that  if  he  should  create  this 
first  pair,  it  would  remain  happy  for  only  a  brief 
time,  and  then  fall  into  the  deepest  suffering  and 
degradation,  carrying  with  it  all  the  generations  of  its 
offspring  from  the  first  to  the  last. 

"Suppose,  now,  that  with  all  this  in  his  knowledge, 
and  without  devising  any  means  of  alleviating  the  suf- 
fering, or  of  counteracting  the  evil  he  foresees,  Mr. 
Huxley  should  create  that  first  pair,  making  them  so 
that  they  might  possibly  avoid  the  wrong-doing  and 
wretchedness,  but  knowing  absolutely  that  they  would 
not  avoid  it;  what  would  we  think  of  Mr.  Huxley  for 
doing  it?  We  would  say  that  it  might  have  been  al- 
lowable for  him  to  have  created  the  first  pair,  but  that 
foreseeing  the  consequences,  as  he  did,  it  was  both  un- 
fair and  cruel  for  him  to  create  them  so  that  they 
would  give  birth  to  an  offspring  like  their  fallen 
selves.  Every  theologian  would  condemn  him,  and 
Arminian  and  Calvanist  alike  would  brand  him 
wretch. 

"But  does  not  this  supposed  creation  of  Mr.  Hux- 
ley bear  an  exact  analogy  to  what  God's  creation  of 
man  would  have  been  apart  from  redemption?  .  .  . 

"Let  us  look  more  closely  into  this  matter.  We  say 
God  created  Adam  and  Eve  able  to  stand,  yet  free  to 


22  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

fall.  Personally  they  were,  therefore,  justly  held 
guilty  for  their  transgression.  God  foresaw  their  fall 
but  did  not  cause  it.  But  turn  your  eyes  to  their 
descendants.  God  fixed  two  laws  upon  Adam  and 
Eve.  The  first  was,  Be  parents;  the  second,  Beget 
and  bear  children  like  yourselves.  After  the  fall  this 
second  law  became,  Beget  and  bring  forth  a  sinful 
race. 

"Birth  into  the  world  would  be  an  unmitigated 
curse  apart  from  redemption.  Each  child  born  under 
the  circumstances  would  have  had  to  lay  the  blame 
somewhere.  It  could  not  have  laid  it  upon  itself. 
No  child  has  anything  to  do  with  its  own  birth,  much 
less  with  being  born  sinful  and  wretched.  Neither 
could  it  have  laid  the  responsibility  upon  its  parents, 
for  they  would  have  been  as  parents  are  now,  under 
law  to  God  himself  in  the  matter,  and  each  birth  that 
took  place  would  have  occurred,  as  each  birth  does 
now,  in  obedience  to  His  law,  written  in  the  very 
nature  of  both  the  father  and  the  mother.  The  in- 
creasing race  of  men  (if  the  race  could  have  sur- 
vived) would,  if  they  could  have  known  God  at  all, 
have  had  to  look  upon  him  as  a  monster,  who  took  de- 
light in  confusion,  anguish  and  death.  If  God  had 
created  men  for  such  a  fate,  what  sense  of  justice 
there  could  have  been  in  his  universe  under  such  con- 
ditions would  have  risen  on  all  sides  to  curse  him  to 
his  face.  That  sense  of  justice  would,  in  hate  and 
loathing,  have  said — "God  foreknew  that  the  race 
he  thought  of  creating  would  be  supremely  and  for- 
ever wretched,  and  yet  he  created  it !" 

These  are  plain  words  and  they  make  it  clear 
that  man's  sin  and  God's  righteousness  can  never 


GOD'S  RIGHTEOUSNESS  £3 

be   considered   apart   from   each   other.     So   this 
young  preacher  continued: — 

"I  want  to  say  further  on  this  head  that  while  it 
is  true,  in  one  sense,  that  creation  was  the  foundation 
for  redemption,  it  is  equally  true  in  another  sense, 
that  redemption  was  the  foundation  for  creation. 
We  have  seen  that  God  could  not  have  withheld  re- 
demption from  our  race,  as  a  whole,  without  treating 
it  unjustly.  His  wish  and  purpose  were  plainly  that 
there  should  be  a  numerous  race,  and  not  simply  two 
individuals.  His  wish  for  a  numerous  race,  and  his 
justice  and  love,  together  with  his  foresight  of  the 
fall,  forced  upon  Him,  as  it  were,  the  necessity  of  a 
redeeming  plan.  Had  his  wisdom  been  unable  to  de- 
vise such  a  plan,  his  love  and  his  justice  would  have 
held  him  back  from  creating  man  at  all.  'That  he 
might  be  just*  is  one  of  Paul's  own  words." 

Continuing1,  this  same  young  man  asked: — 

"Does  some  one  say,  You  would  make  redemption 
the  vindication  of  creation?  I  reply — Yes;  I  believe 
that  to  God  himself  it  was  and  is  that.  And,  as  for 
us,  it  is  the  only  vindication  that  has  reached  us.  I 
go  further  still  and  say,  that  we  cannot  yet  see  how 
even  it  is  a  sufficient  vindication.  Cannot  yet  see,  I 
say.  We  can  believe  it  now  and  expect  to  see  it  by 
and  by.  Only  that.  We  walk  by  faith  here,  as  long 
at  least  as  we  continue  to  believe  the  scriptural  doc- 
trine of  endless  sin  and  endless  suffering  as  a  pos- 
sibility, if  not  a  certainty,  for  some." 

These  positions  are  impregnable.     Even  divine 


24  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

might  does  not  make  right.  The  essential 
demands  of  justice  are  not  difficult  to  discern,  and 
the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  must  surely  be  at  least 
as  good  as  our  Huxleys. 

As  definite  a  choice  as  was  ever  made  by  the 
divine  mind  was  that  of  continuing  a  sinful  race 
upon  this  planet,  and  that  choice  would  have  been 
as  sinful  as  the  race  itself,  had  not  his  righteous- 
ness made  sinful  men  only  that  it  might  redeem 
them.  Redemption,  therefore,  is  neither  a  divine 
afterthought,  nor  a  divine  work  of  supereroga- 
tion, but  a  work  demanded,  and  entered  into,  by 
infinite  justice. 

The  New  Testament  writers  most  definitely  rec- 
ognize this.  The  author  of  The  Revelation  saw 
Jesus  as  "the  Lamb  that  has  been  sacrificed  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world."  (Rev.  13:8.) 
Peter  writes  of  him  as  at  once  a  sacrifice  and  a 
ransom  for  those  to  whom  his  letter  was  ad- 
dressed, and  declared  that  he  was  "destined  for 
this  before  the  beginning  of  the  world."  (I  Pet. 
1:19,  20.)  Paul  adds:  "This  God  did  to  prove 
his  righteousness  ...  as  a  proof,  I  repeat, 
at  the  present  time,  of  his  own  righteousness,  that 
he  might  be  righteous  in  our  eyes,  and  might  pro- 
nounce righteous  the  man  who  takes  his  stand  on 
faith  in  Jesus."  (Rom.  3:25,  26.)  Elsewhere 
Paul  makes  it  very  clear  that  when  God  pro- 
nounces a  man  righteous,  "who  takes  his  stand  on 
faith  in  Jesus,"  that  man's  faith  has  already  seen 
in  Jesus  the  deliverance  from  sin  itself,  which  he 


GOD'S  RIGHTEOUSNESS  25 

could  by  no  means  work  out  on  his  own  behalf. 
God  pronounces  righteous  only  the  man  whom  he, 
at  the  same  time,  makes  righteous.  So  in  giving 
Jesus  to  the  world,  and  calling  upon  all  men  to 
take  their  stand  on  faith  in  him  as  their  Savior 
from  sin  itself,  He  was  proving  to  men  that  it  was 
only  "in  his  forbearance  he  had  passed  over  the 
sins  that  men  had  previously  committed"  (Rom. 
3:25)  ;  and  that  he  might,  in  view  of  his  purpose 
regarding  both  that  past,  and  the  holy  and  uni- 
versal new  order  of  things  he  was  establishing 
through  Jesus;  satisfy  all  men  that  he  had  con- 
tinued to  maintain  a  sinning  and  suffering  race, 
only  that  he  might  redeem  it  from  all  iniquity 
and  exalt  it  to  a  glory  of  righteousness,  far  be- 
yond all  its  present  powers  of  comprehension. 

From  one  of  Paul's  viewpoints,  therefore,  the 
atoning  work  of  Christ  was  God's  most  potent 
apologia  pro  vita  sua — his  most  powerful  apolo- 
getic. It  is  easy  to  see  how  much  such  an  apolo- 
getic was  needed,  and  how  far  men  still  are  from 
perceiving  its  full  force.  Even  as  things  have 
been  under  redemption,  more  than  one  woman  has 
said  to  her  husband,  when  conditions  had  been 
rendered  all  but  unendurable,  and  through  no 
guilty  act  of  their  own,  "Renounce  God  and  die" ; 
and  few  indeed  of  the  men  who  have  listened  to 
such  counsel  have  been  Jobs.  But  the  appeal  has 
not  been  made  in  vain,  and  gradually  it  will 
smooth  the  wrinkles  out  of  all  foreheads,  and 
steal  the  bitterness  from  even  life's  chief  woes. 


26  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Through  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  God  has  re- 
vealed himself  as  the  Trinity — as  the  Father  who 
loves  all  his  afflicted  and  straying  children,  and 
sent  the  Son  in  whom  he  could  always  delight  to 
enlighten  and  bless  them;  the  Son  himself  as  un- 
dertaking the  task  with  a  perfect  devotion  towards 
both  his  Father  and  his  needy  brothers,  and  as  suf- 
fering and  dying  for  them  without  a  murmur, 
though  it  was  their  own  hatred  towards  his  perfect 
goodness  that  nailed  him  to  his  cross ;  and  the  Holy 
Spirit  as  the  invisible  omnipresent  and  almighty 
friend,  instructor  and  uplifter  of  all.  It  was  in 
view  of  this  infinite  apologetic  that  Paul  exulted 
when  he  wrote:  "God  puts  his  love  for  us  beyond 
all  doubt  by  the  fact  that  Christ  died  on  our 
behalf  while  we  were  still  sinners."  (Rom.  5:8.) 
And  the  first  generation  of  Christians  caught 
but  the  vision  which  was  held  in  reserve  for  our 
whole  race  before  even  the  world  we  inhabit  was 
launched  upon  its  varied  career. 

It  will  be  well  for  us  to  notice  next  that  the 
necessity  for  that  divine  forbearance  towards 
sin  which  impressed  Paul,  was  one  which  God 
imposed  upon  himself,  when  he  became  man's 
creator.  He  chose  to  create,  foreseeing  all,  and 
knowing  that  if  he  created  the  race,  it  would,  for 
hundreds  of  generations,  be  made  up  of  sinners 
incapable  of  self-redemption.  He  foreknew  that, 
in  the  very  nature  of  things,  as  he  himself  would 
make  them,  not  one  child  of  Adam  would  be  respon- 
sible for  his  birth  into  the  world  with  a  depraved 


GOD'S  RIGHTEOUSNESS  21 

nature,  which  was  sure  to  lead  him  astray — that 
whatever  might  or  might  not  be  true  concerning 
our  first  parents,  this  would  certainly  be  true 
of  their  descendants.  He  foreknew  also  that 
apart  from  continuous  enlightenment  by  himself 
Adam's  race  would  know  nothing  at  all  about 
righteousness,  and  that  to  save  them  into  right- 
eousness he  would  have  to  do  a  great  deal  more 
than  simply  enlighten  them — that  they  would  have 
to  be  created  anew,  indeed.  Deliberately  he  chose 
such  a  race  for  himself — ignorant,  that  he  might 
enlighten  it;  sinful,  that  he  might  make  it  holy; 
hateful  and  hating  the  highest,  that  he  might 
fill  it  with  his  own  loftiest  love.  To  be  forbear- 
ing towards  such  a  race  was  simply  to  stand  by 
his  choice,  and  go  forward  under  a  necessity  of 
his  own  creation.  Whatever  responsibility  has 
stood  in  association  with  the  inherited  ignorance 
and  sin  of  each  generation,  has  been  God's,  not 
man's.  No  man  and  no  generation  could  possibly 
be  called  to  an  account  for  more  than  the  sins, 
which  he  or  it  had  chosen  in  the  face  of  a  light 
and  a  help,  which  made  the  choice  really  avoid- 
able. Apart  from  the  work  of  divine  redemp- 
tion, which  includes  moral  enlightenment,  that  is 
to  say,  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  moral 
responsibility  for  any  son  of  Adam.  God's  very 
forbearance  towards  men  becomes  a  reality  only 
as  his  redeeming  light  and  aid  are  consciously  and 
willfully  rejected.  Precisely  as  far  as  men  are 
without  light,  or  without  power  to  live  up  to  the 


28  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

light  they  have  received,  their  sin  is  a  missing 
of  the  mark,  or  the  symptom  of  a  moral  disease; 
and  their  guilt  is  that  of  the  child,  that  has  in- 
herited from  its  parents  partial  blindness,  along 
with  some  other  deeply  disabling  maladies.  It  is 
its  doom  to  suffer  for  no  fault  of  its  own,  and 
because  God  ordained  it  should  be  so.  God  linked 
sin  and  suffering  together  and  doomed  our  race, 
at  least  after  the  first  pair,  with  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  Bible,  it  began,  to  both;  and  he  made 
the  suffering,  on  both  the  physical  and  the  moral 
side,  the  lot  of  even  those  who  are  too  young,  or 
too  ignorant,  to  choose  the  wrong  which  incurs 
the  pain  or  the  weakness  under  which  they  labor. 
God  has  loaded  the  body,  the  intellect,  the  affec- 
tions and  the  will  of  our  race,  with  the  penalties 
he  has  attached  to  sin.  He  has  made  innocence 
to  suffer  with  guilt  in  this  mystery  of  his  govern- 
ment. 

In  the  last  named  fact  do  we  not  find  the  sug- 
gestion that  he  deals  with  men  differently  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  individual  conscience?  For  if 
the  individual  suffers  in  his  innocence  as  well  as 
in  his  guilt,  surely  his  conscience  is  left  out  of  the 
account  so  far.  What  he  endures  he  suffers  as 
a  member  of  the  race,  and  not  as  a  being  endowed 
with  an  individuality  which  forces  him  to  stand 
out  also  in  an  accountability  to  God  which  is 
personal  and  solitary. 

Now  what  of  the  New  Testament?  Has  it  any 
word  concerning  such  a  distinction?  Do  its 


GOD'S  RIGHTEOUSNESS  29 

writers  tell  us  anything  about  the  solidarity  of 
the  race,  on  the  one  hand,  and  personal  responsi- 
bility on  the  other?  Above  all,  have  they,  in  ad- 
dition, some  word  that  will  show  us  how  far, 
in  their  opinion,  God  holds  the  individual  man  ac- 
countable for  the  sins  of  his  heart  and  life?  How 
far  was  sin  to  them  a  missing  of  the  mark,  or  a 
disease  of  the  moral  nature,  and  how  far  was  it 
a  deliberate,  wickedly-chosen  and  guilty  thing? 

The  answer  is  easy.  They  faced  the  situation 
and  expressed  themselves  clearly.  Their  memory 
of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  guided  them,  and  their 
grasp  of  the  first  principles  of  justice  did  the 
rest.  They  knew  that  the  moral  quality  of  an 
action  must  be  sought  for  in  the  purpose  from 
which  it  springs.  They  knew,  too,  that  the  man 
who  is  not  aware  that  the  action  he  contemplates, 
or  the  disposition  he  cherishes,  is  wrong,  can  pur- 
pose neither  disobedience  towards  God,  nor  any- 
thing unrighteous  towards  his  fellow-men,  under 
any  conditions  whatever.  So  to  them  ignorance 
excused  men  and  knowledge  rendered  them  cul- 
pable. They  believed  a  man  must  know  he  is 
breaking  a  law  he  should  obey,  if  he  is  to  be  held 
guilty  in  the  act  he  does,  and  that  the  purpose 
must  be  consciously  wrong,  if  the  formal  act  of 
transgression  is  to  be  set  down  as  sinful.  Paul, 
for  instance,  declared  that  "sin!  cannot  be  charged 
against  a  man  where  no  law  exists."  (Rom. 
5:13.)  And  this  word,  read  in  the  light  of  Luke 
12:47,  48,  and  John  15:22,  24,  cannot  be  inter- 


30  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

preted  otherwise  than  as  meaning  that  the  place 
where  the  law  must  exist,  to  make  the  transgres- 
sor of  it  guilty  before  God  is  in  the  knowledge  of 
the  transgressor  himself. 

Paul  made  another  distinction,  which  is  to  be 
found  in  one  of  the  climaxes  of  the  great  classi- 
cal passage  on  sin  in  his  letter  to  the  Romans. 

"When  I  do  the  very  thing  I  want  not  to  do, 
the  action  is  no  longer  my  own,  but  that  of  sin 
which  is  within  me."  (Chap.  7:17.)  Here  he 
looks  upon  sin,  not  as  any  proper  feature  of  his 
character,  or  constituent  of  his  personality,  but 
as  some  foreign  thing  which  has  somehow  got  a 
victorious  footing  within  him,  and  now  acts  it- 
self out  in  spite  of  him. 

No  word  truer  to  human  experience  than  this 
was  ever  penned.  Evil  habits  are  common 
enough,  but  their  commonness  does  not  prevent 
us  from  being  in  continual  astonishment  at  their 
power.  No  boy  with  his  first  cigarette  between 
his  lips,  no  man  taking  his  first  sip  of  an  in- 
toxicating beverage,  can  be  persuaded  that  so 
simple  an  act  may  very  soon  mean  the  tighten- 
ing upon  him  of  fetters  that  he  will  vainly  attempt 
to  break.  He  smiles  at  every  well-meant  warn- 
ing, because  he  feels  sure  that  the  strength  of  his 
own  manhood  is  behind  his  unchained  will  to  keep 
it  forever  free.  And  when  he  does  find  himself 
helpless  to  do  more  than  struggle,  he  knows  that 
his  slavery  was  not  self-chosen — that  he  had 
chosen  its  very  opposite  from  the  start,  and  had 


GOD'S  RIGHTEOUSNESS  31 

scarcely  dreamed  of  what  was  before  him.  His 
ignorance  was  played  upon.  He  had  been  de- 
ceived and  was  now  being  mocked  by  his  foe. 

Let  a  man  face  all  the  sins  of  his  life  and  defy 
them  to  hold  him  any  longer  in  their  grip.  Let 
your  man  be  one  who  has  never  fallen  under  the 
power  of  even  one  of  the  habits,  which  we  call 
foolish  or  bad.  Give  him  the  most  favorable  con- 
ditions possible.  Let  him  be  a  very  Saul  of  Tar- 
sus or  a  John  Wesley,  in  what  the  world  calls 
rectitude  and  high  ambition.  Yet  the  day  will 
come  to  him  when  he  will  cry  the  cry  of  the  man 
who  knows  himself  to  be  held  in  a  bitter  bondage 
which  he  never  consciously  chose,  and  which  he 
has  come  to  loathe  with  a  miserable  helpless  loath- 
ing, that  can  scarcely  voice  itself  intelligibly. 
He  will  feel  as  if  all  the  sin  of  all  his  dead 
grandsires  had  come  out  of  the  dark  and  ghastly 
past,  to  force  him  down  with  cruel  bony  hands, 
when  he  is  fully  resolved  to  step  upward,  instead, 
into  the  light  of  a  worthy  morning.  And  the 
feeling  about  his  dead  grandsires  will  be  true  to 
the  facts,  and  no  mere  "as  if." 

"In  Adam  all  died."  Heredity  can  be  terrible. 
Each  man  is  the  net  resultant  of  all  the  forces 
that  produced  him,  plus  that  God-given,  better, 
feebly-aspiring  something,  which  he  knows  to  be 
himself — himself  bound  to  a  dead  body  which  he 
can  by  no  means  shake  off — himself  crying1 — 
"Miserable  man  that  I  am!  Who  will  deliver 
me?" 


32  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Now  what  is  the  fact  behind  this  fact?  When 
a  man  can  truly  say  of  his  wrong-doing:  "It 
is  no  longer  I  that  do  it,"  what  are  we  bound  to 
affirm  besides?  When  we  remember  that  the  fact 
of  his  helplessness  was  the  same  before  he  real- 
ized it  as  it  was  afterwards,  what  are  we  to  say? 
This — that  up  to  the  very  limits  of  his  helpless- 
ness, he  is  no  more  to  blame  for  not  doing  his 
proper  work  in  God's  world,  than  is  the  strong 
man  whose  system  has  been  invaded  and  rendered 
helpless  by  the  typhoid  bacillus.  Further,  his 
very  delusions  are  themselves  a  part  of  his  dis- 
ease, and  he  cannot  escape  until  his  malady  has 
been  met  and  mastered  by  a  delivering  power 
stronger  than  either  itself  or  him,  and  he  is  being 
led  up  to  health  and  vigor. 

To  the  conclusion  that  the  place  where  the  law 
of  God  must  exist,  to  make  its  transgressor  guilty 
before  him,  is  in  the  knowledge  of  the  transgres- 
sor himself,  we  must  now  add,  therefore,  this 
other  word,  that  up  to  the  very  limits  of  each 
man's  helplessness  to  avoid  his  transgressions,  the 
divine  /righteousness  must  hold  him  personally 
guiltless.  The  victim  of  typhoid  cannot  fairly 
be  held  accountable  for  the  full  work  of  a  healthy 
man.  Sin  is,  in  one  of  its  phases,  a  disease  for 
the  existence  of  which  no  man,  since  Adam,  can 
be  held  responsible.  This  is  New  Testament 
teaching.  And,  according  to  that  same  teach- 
ing, it  was  the  darkness  of  our  ignorance  that 
brought  the  Light  of  the  World  to  our  relief,  the 


GOD'S  RIGHTEOUSNESS  33 

awfulness  of  our  disease  that  brought  the  great 
Physician  to  our  side,  and  our  helplessness  in  our 
bitter  bondage  that  brought  the  Mighty  Deliv- 
erer to  our  rescue. 

Over  against  this  obligation  of  God  to  man, 
self-imposed  and  self-recognized,  lies  our  own  ob- 
ligation to  him.  Each  man  knows  himself  to  be 
individually  responsible  to  God  and  feels  that 
he  has  been  a  sinner  against  him  on  his  own 
account.  This  consciousness  of  personal  guilt 
arises  out  of  the  fact  that  God  has  been  known 
to  us  as  the  God  of  Salvation  from  both  our  sins 
and  sinfulness  to  a  greater  extent  than  we  have 
availed  ourselves  of  his  sanctifying  grace.  But 
the  bitterest  cry  that  breaks  from  human  lips 
and  lifts  itself  to  Heaven,  is  wrung  from  human 
hearts,  not  by  this  guilt,  but  in  view  of  that  help- 
lessness through  sin's  disease  or  bondage,  which 
makes  the  life  of  righteousness  impossible  without 
Heaven's  help.  Our  joy  is  that  He  who  made 
and  maintains  the  need  for  infinite  help  has  be- 
stowed that  aid  from  the  start,  and  with  grow- 
ingly  glorious  results. 

Here,  then,  we  have  reached  this  one  clear  fact, 
that  the  plan  of1  redemption,  in  which  the  Incarna- 
tion was  wrapped  up  from  the  beginning,  found 
its  primeval  necessity  in  the  righteousness  of  the 
Infinite  Love. 


Ill 

JESUS  AS  A  SIGN 

A  sign  is  some  visible  thing  which  represents 
an  invisible  reality  greater  than  itself.  Christian- 
ity has  three  of  these  signs.  Two  of  them  we 
call  sacraments.  They  are  Baptism  and  the 
Lord's  Supper.  In  baptism  the  outward  and 
visible  act  of  applying  water  to  an  individual  who 
has  been  presented  for  the  purpose  of  undergo- 
ing the  rite,  represents  an  invisible  act  indefinitely 
greater  than  itself.  So  also  the  visible  act  of 
one  who  partakes  of  the  Lord's  supper  repre- 
sents an  indefinitely  greater  invisible  act. 

Water  is  invaluable  as  a  food  and  also  as  an 
instrument  of  cleansing.  Associate  it  with  a 
cleansing  agent  in  a  Turkish  bath  institute  and 
it  means  physical  cleansing  for  all  who  come  and 
submit  to  certain  conditions.  But  associate  water 
with  one  who  is  authorized  to  use  it  in  baptism, 
and  let  him  apply  it  to  the  persons  of  those 
who  are  presented  for  the  rite,  and  the  act  of 
the  baptizer  represents  that  invisible  act  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  by  which  He  purifies  the  hearts  of 
those  who  believe  in  God  as  the  God  of  their 
personal  salvation  through  Jesus  Christ. 

Bread  is  invaluable  as  a  sustainer  of  physical 
84 


JESUS  AS  A  SIGN  35 

life,  and  unfermented  wine  is  the  very  life  of  the 
grape — the  very  life  of  the  grape  plant  itself, 
indeed,  since  it  produces  the  seed,  or  plants  in 
embryo,  of  all  future  vineyards.  Unfermented 
grape  juice  and  bread  taken  together,  therefore, 
are  a  sign  of,  or  represent,  physical  life  and  its 
sustenance.  And  when  you  set  portions  of  them 
apart  for  use  in  connection  with  the  spiritual 
religion  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  rite 
which  we  call  his  Supper,  they  then  represent  him 
as  at  once  the  Spiritual  life  and  the  spiritual 
nourishment  of  all  those  who  continously  receive 
him  by  obedient  faith,  just  as  obediently  they 
partake  of  the  bread  and  wine  themselves  in  the 
Supper. 

But  before  either  of  these  symbols  could  be 
chosen  on  earth,  one  had  to  be  chosen  in  heaven. 
The  thing  it  was  to  represent  was  the  divine  love 
for  our  sinful  race.  It  had  to  be  something  that 
could  actually  set  forth  the  infinite  thing  that  was 
to  be  represented.  It  had  to  be  something  also 
that  even  the  worst  man  could  understand  and 
appreciate.  The  use  of  water  in  baptism  could 
be  understood  and  appreciated  as  symbolizing 
moral  and  spiritual  cleansing.  Partaking  of 
bread  and  wine  in  the  Lord's  Supper  could  be  un- 
derstood and  appreciated  as  showing  forth  the 
reception  of  Christ  as  the  inbringer  and  sustainer 
of  spiritual  life  in  those  who  believe  in  him.  But 
what  could  stand  as  a  symbol  of  that  love  of 
the  triune  Jehovah,  which  stoops  and  suffers  and 


36  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

dies,  that  it  may  win  bad  men  to  holiness  and 
peace  and  enduring  riches?  Could  men  have 
guessed  ? 

The  divine  solution  of  the  problem,  when  it 
first  met  human  eyes,  was  a  babe.  But  this  babe 
would  have  been  no  solution  at  all,  if  it  had  died  in 
childhood.  For  then  it  would  have  represented 
innocence,  apart  from  conscious  intelligence  and 
personal  choice,  and  God  in  himself  cannot  be 
truly  represented  thus.  Each  babe  is  God-like  in 
its  possibilities,  but  a  babe  must  live  on  for  years 
if  these  possibilities  are  ever  to  become  the  actual 
facts  of  character,  which  men  can  see  and  ad- 
mire and  love.  The  son  of  Mary,  lying  there  in 
the  manger,  receives  homage,  because  the  spirit 
of  prophecy  has  already  seen  him  as  the  glorious 
man  he  afterwards  became.  It  is  not  the  babe, 
but  the  man  the  babe  so  soon  became,  that  is 
approached  with  bended  knee.  Could  it  have  been 
true  that  he  was  to  die  in  infancy,  the  spirit  of 
prophecy  would  never  have  been  awakened  con- 
cerning him,  and  he  would  have  gone  to  a  grave 
that  would  in  a  few  short  years  have  been  name- 
less and  forgotten.  The  worship  of  a  babe,  as 
a  babe,  is  no  true  part  of  Christianity. 

Man  is  at  once  a  common  being  on  this  planet, 
and  the  most  exalted  in  his  attributes  of  all  its 
inhabitants.  So  high  is  he  in  comparison  with 
every  other  earthly  being,  that  he  is  arbiter  of 
the  destinies  of  them  all.  One  man  is  of  more 
worth  than  every  creature  besides.  So  man  is  the 


JESUS  AS  A  SIGN  37 

highest  being  that  man  can  become  acquainted 
with  upon  this  planet,  short  of  God  himself.  And 
if  God  had  to  be  seen  by  bad  men,  not  directly 
but  through  another,  that  other  had  himself  to 
be  a  man,  and  a  man  worthy  of  the  God  for  whom 
he  was  to  stand.  So  the  babe  was  born  and  grew 
to  years  as  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Son  of  Man. 
And  so  utterly  human  was  he  that  those  who  grew 
up  with  him,  in  the  same  home  even,  never  dreamed 
of  him  as  being  essentially  different  from  them- 
selves. He  began  his  public  career  and  gathered 
disdiples  about  him.  They  were  impressed  by 
his  superiority,  but  after  his  transfiguration, 
which  three  of  them  witnessed,  and  even  after 
he  came  back  to  them  from  the  dead,  he  was  still 
so  truly  human  to  them,  that  they  asked  him  if 
he  was  not  now  at  last  going  into  their  politics 
to  restore  the  kingdom  and  place  Israel  at  the 
very  forefront  of  the  nations. 

We  sometimes  grieve  over  this  blindness  of 
theirs,  as  we  call  it.  But  after  all  they  were  not 
blind  to  the  main  fact.  In  Jesus  they  saw  God. 
They  saw  he  was  human  but  they  saw  also  that 
he  represented  their  God — that  his  human  life 
was  a  sign  of  the  life  of  God,  and,  at  length,  that 
it  stood  for  every  infinite  attribute  of  God,  and 
specifically  for  the  love  that  stoops  and  suffers 
that  it  may  win  bad  men  out  of  sin  into  holiness, 
out  of  trouble  into  peace,  and  out  of  poverty 
into  wealth. 

They  saw,  too,  that  he  was  a  sign  of  God  not 


38  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

as  in  his  heaven  making  all  well  with  his  world, 
but  of  God  among  men,  dealing  with  everything 
on  the  spot.  Instead  of  saying  as  they  looked 
upon  him,  and  as  later  they  remembered  him, 
"God's  in  his  heaven,"  they  said,  God's  in  his 
world — "Immanuel,  God  is  with  us !" 

Jesus  Christ,  the  man  who  was  the  Son  of 
God  was  not  himself  an  infinite  fact,  but  a  finite 
one,  and  painfully  finite.  He  was  limited  on 
every  side,  andj  is  limited  still,  though  less  so  than 
when  here  in  the  flesh.  His  sinless  and  wholly 
beneficient  career,  standing  before  his  first  fol- 
lowers in  its  solitary  grandeur,  made  them  say 
that  God  was  here  in  one  life.  And  when  the 
Holy  Spirit  came  upon  themselves,  and  then  upon 
the  sinful  men  to  whom  they  preached  him  as 
Savior,  and  soon  upon  Gentiles  as  well  as  Jews, 
they  saw  that  his  life  of  seeking  the  lost  had 
represented  the  universal  presence  of  God  here 
doing  the  same  thing. 

"I  know  not  where  his  islands  lift 
Their  fronded  palms  in  air; 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  his  love  and  care." 

This  is  the  vast  lesson  that  comes  to  us  through 
the  incarnation.  The  babe  in  the  manger  is  in 
itself  a  fact  of  deep  interest,  but  if  this  fact  had 
stood  alone,  it  would  never  have  won  power 
enough  to  get  itself  heralded  down  the  ages, 
nor  would  there  ever  have  been  a  Christmas  or 


JESUS  AS  A  SIGN  39 

a  year  of  our  Lord.  Babe  and  man,  Jesus  Christ 
is  a  visible  sign  that  represents  an  infinite  reality, 
and  that  reality  is  the  universally  present  love 
of  God  for  bad  men.  Luke  represents  Jesus  him- 
self as  declaring1  that,  just  as  Jonah  was,  in  spite 
of  himself,  a  sign  of  God's  holy  love  towards  the 
wicked,  but  repentant,  Ninevites,  so  he  himself  was 
a  sign  of  that  same  love  towards  the  men  of  his 
generation.  (Luke  11:30.)  And,  according  to 
the  fourth  gospel  he  continually  kept  this  fact 
at  the  front. 

He  was  great — so  great  that  his  early  follow- 
ers felt  it  was  in  every  way  fitting  that  he  should 
speak  of  the  lowliest  member  of  his  kingdom  as 
greater  than  John  the  Baptist — the  greatest 
prophet  of  the  olden  time.  (Luke  7:28.)  But 
his  greatness  both  as  helper  and  teacher  was  seen 
most  of  all  in  the  fact  that  he  was  a  sign,  and 
represented  an  invisible  authority,  help  and  wis- 
dom which  were  indefinitely  greater  than  his  own. 
So  he  is  brought  before  us  in  the  fourth  gospel 
as  saying :  "The  Son  can  do  nothing  of  himself ; 
he  does  only  what  he  sees  the  Father  doing." 
(John  5:19.)  "When  you  have  lifted  up  the 
Son  of  Man,  then  you  will  understand  that  I 
am  what  I  am,  and  that  I  do  nothing  of  myself, 
but  that  I  say  just  what  the  Father  has  taught 
me.  ...  I  always  do  what  pleases  him." 
(John  8:28,  29.)  "The  Father  is  greater  than 
I."  (John  14:28.) 

Such    language    can    bear    but    one    meaning. 


40  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

It  teaches  us  that  the  early  followers  of  Jesus 
saw  their  chief  cause  of  joy  in  the  fact  that 
he  represented  in  the  visible  a  corresponding 
invisible  personality  greater  than  himself — 
greater  in  authority,  in  might,  in  knowledge 
and  in  goodness.  To  them  he  was  God  with- 
in the  limits  of  the  highest  possible  manhood  of 
his  time,  and  represented  the  infinite  deity.  He 
was  a  sign,  and,  according  to  the  New  Testament 
writers,  the  precise  fact  which  he  came  to  repre- 
sent was  the  continuous  presence  of  the  holy  lov- 
ing God  among  men.  These  writers  did  not  hold 
the  doctrine  of  an  absentee  deity,  but  of  an  omni- 
present God,  who  could  not  be  absent  anywhere 
for  even  one  moment,  if  he  wished. 

This  comes  out  very  clearly  in  Matthew  1 :23 
where  we  learn  that  the  early  church  applied  to 
Jesus  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  7:14.  The  one 
thing  Isaiah  was  seeking  to  impress  upon  Ahaz 
was  that  God's  abiding  presence  in  Jerusalem 
made  an  alliance  with  Assyria  unnecessary  and  an 
impertinence.  When  Ahaz  obstinately  refused  to 
be  convinced,  the  prophet  burst  in  upon  him  with 
the  declaration  that  God  would  force  a  sign  upon 
him,  and  that  the  sign  would  be  this.  While  he 
was  still  trusting  in  the  armed  hosts  of  Assyria, 
one  absolutely  a  non-combatant,  a  young  girl- 
mother,  would  so  realize  the  protecting  presence 
of  God  for  herself  and  her  babe,  and  for  all  the 
other  babes  and  mothers  of  Judah,  that  she  would 
name  her  child  Immanuel — God  is  with  us.  To 


JESUS  AS  A  SIGN  41 

her  that  presence  would  remain  as  the  greatest 
fact  of  all  for  the  quieting  of  her  fears;  and  it 
would  also  be  the  greatest  fact  of  all  for  Judah  as 
a  whole.  Such  protection  and  deliverance  as  re- 
mained possible  in  connection  with  the  unbeliev- 
ing and  perilous  policy  of  Ahaz  and  his  foolish 
fear-haunted  advisers,  would  arise  out  of  the 
infinite  fact  for  which  that  child  would  stand, 
as  long  as  he  bore  the  name  his  mother  would 
give  him.  Centuries  passed.  Ahaz  and  all  his 
royal  successors  to  David's  throne  passed  also. 
Another  maiden  was  to  be  the  mother  of  a  son, 
and  Matthew  says  that  before  the  child  was  born, 
an  angelic  messenger  informed  the  maiden's 
betrothed  husband  that  this  prophecy  of  Isaiah 
would  be  fulfilled  over  again  in  this  new  child, 
because  they  would  call  him,  too,  "Immanuel — 
a  word  which  means,  God  is  with  us."  And  Luke 
says  that  when,  after  the  child  was  born,  they 
carried  him  to  the  temple  as  the  first  born  son 
of  the  family,  an  aged  prophet  named  Simeon 
took  him  into  his  arms  and  said:  "This  child  is 
appointed  to  be  ...  a  sign.  .  .  ." 
(Luke  2:34.) 

Matthew  and  Luke  recorded  these  things  be- 
cause the  church  had  come  to  realize  that  Jesus 
stood  for  the  fact  that  the  invisible  God  is  every- 
where present  for  the  salvation  of  men.  That 
presence  meant  political  or  temporal  deliverance 
in  Isaiah's  day,  but  to  the  Christian  believers  for 
whom  "Matthew"  and  "Luke"  were  written,  it 


42  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

meant    every    spiritual   good   their   hearts    could 
crave,  either  for  themselves  or  others. 

To  show  how  large  this  fact  bulked  in  the 
thought  of  the  apostolic  church,  we  may  note  a 
few  other  New  Testament  words.  "Members  of 
God's  household,"  is  one  of  Paul's  descriptions 
of  the  body  of  Christian  believers  at  Ephesus. 
(Eph.  2:19.)  But  these  believers  were  only  the 
same  in  privilege  as  all  the  other  believers  of  that 
and  succeeding  times.  God  at  home  with  his 
children,  or  God's  children  at  home  with  him,  is 
the  thought  conveyed  to  the  mind  by  this  word. 

That  they  thought  of  God  as  really  dwelling 
here,  with  his  people  as  his  children,  is  made  very 
plain  in  2nd  Cor.  6:16-18,  where  Paul  makes  the 
fact  the  basis  of  a  call  to  the  deepest  worship 
and  the  highest  possible  holiness. 

Finally,  in  Chapter  21  of  the  Revelation  the 
fact  is  presented  in  the  most  inclusive  way.  "And 
I  saw  the  Holy  City,  Jerusalem,  descending  new 
out  of  Heaven  from  God,  like  a  bride  adorned  in 
readiness  for  her  husband.  And  I  heard  a  loud 
voice  from  the  throne,  which  said — 'See!  the  tab- 
ernacle of  God  is  set  up  among  men.  God  will 
dwell  among  them,  and  they  will  be  his  people,  and 
God  himself  will  be  among  them,  and  he  will  wipe 
away  all  tears  from  their  eyes.  (Rev.  21:2-4.) 
He  showed  me  Jerusalem,  the  Holy  City, 
descending  out  of  heaven  from  God,  filled  with 
the  glory  of  God  .  .  .  (verse  10). 

"And  I  saw  no  temple  there,  for  the  Lord,  our 


JESUS  AS  A  SIGN  43 

God,  the  Almighty,  and  the  Lamb  are  its  temple. 
The  city  has  no  need  of  'the  sun  or  the  moon  to 
shine  upon  it,  for  the  glory  of  God  illuminated 
it,'  and  its  lamp  was  the  Lamb.  'The  nations  will 4 
walk  by  the  light  of  it ;  and  the  kings  of  the  earth 
bring  their  glory  into  it.  Its  gates  shall  never 
be  shut  by  day,'  and  there  will  be  no  night  there. 
And  men  will  bring  the  glory  and  honor  of  the 
nations  into  it.  (Verses  22-26.)  .  .  . 

"And  the  angel  showed  me  'a  river  of  the  Water 
of  Life,'  as  clear  as  crystal,  issuing  from  the 
throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb,  in  the  middle  of 
the  street  of  the  city.  On  each  side  of  the  river 
was  a  tree  of  Life  which  bore  twelve  kinds  of  fruit, 
yielding  its  fruit  each  month ;  and  the  leaves  of  the 
tree  were  for  the  healing  of  the  nations.  'Every- 
thing that  is  accursed  will  cease  to  be.'  The 
throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb  will  be  within  it, 
and  his  servants  will  worship  him ;  they  will  see  his 
face  and  his  name  will  be  in  their  foreheads." 
(Rev.  22:  1-4.)  All  this  splendid  imagery, 
drawn  largely  from  the  older  prophets,  conveyed 
one  clear  message  to  the  hearts  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians. God,  as  in  Christ,  was  omnipresent 
among  men,  "reconciling  the  world  to  himself,  not 
reckoning  men's  offences  against  them."  (2nd 
Cor.  5:19.)  The  glory  of  his  holy  love  shone 
forth  in  and  through  his  church,  enlightening, 
alluring  and  claiming  men  as  his  own,  and  bless- 
ing them  with  every  good;  and  that  glory  would 
shine  on  till  all  peoples  were  won,  and  the  whole 


44  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

race  found  itself  permanently  rejoicing  in  the 
presence  of  God  himself,  and  in  the  possession  of 
every  bounty  in  his  gift.  And  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Lamb,  was  already  the  sign  and  pledge  of  it  all. 
(Rom.  8:32.) 


IV 
THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS 

Each  true  man  is  always  in  the  making.  His 
making  begins  centuries  before  his  birth  and  con- 
tinues as  long  as  he  consciously  chooses  the  bet- 
ter instead  of  the  worse  and  the  higher  good  in 
succession  to  the  lower.  Our  Cromwells  and  Lin- 
coins,  our  Shakespeares  and  Goethes,  our  Luthers 
and  Wesleys,  our  Darwins  and  Wallaces  and  Hux- 
leys  and  Haeckels,  our  Hugos  and  Dickenses,  our 
Jameses  and  Bergsens  have  not  sprung  from  the 
Veddahs  of  Ceylon,  the  African  Bushmen  or  the 
Australian  "Blacks."  Heredity  of  race  is  a 
mighty  factor  in  human  affairs,  and  a  race  must 
itself  have  arrived  at  greatness  before  it  can 
produce  the  intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual 
giants  of  the  world. 

Jesus  sprang  from  God's  spiritual  aristocracy, 
from  a  race  that  knew  him,  had  fellowship  with 
him,  and  rejoiced  in  his  righteousness  and  his 
love,  till  their  intellects  and  imaginations  guided 
their  pens  into  the  production  of  a  religious  litera- 
ture incomparable  at  once  in  its  grandeur  and  its 
sweetness,  its  sublimity  and  its  tenderness.  Of 
Israel  it  has  well  been  said  that  "the  voices  of 
her  seers  and  singers  sound  silvery  and  soft 

45 


46  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

through  the  centuries."  And  it  is  quite  as  true, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  the  lightnings  and  thun- 
der peals  of  her  Sinai  awe  men's  hearts  at  all  the 
ends  of  the  world.  Jesus  himself  recognized  the 
fact  that  the  beginnings  of  his  manhood  were  to 
be  found  as  far  back  as  Abraham  at  least.  He 
sprang  from  no  one  of  the  peoples  that  were 
"far  off,"  but  from  the  one  people  that  was 
"near."  (Eph.  2:17.)  Whatever,  therefore,  re- 
mains to  be  told  besides,  it  is  certainly  true  that 
all  the  available  advantages  of  the  religious  and 
spiritual  sort,  derivable  from  a  given  race  of  men, 
were  made  the  personal  inheritance  of  Jesus.  No 
other  race  existing  upon  the  planet  at  the  time,  or 
that  had  ever  existed  upon  it,  could  have  conferred 
half  as  much.  If  the  Greek  stood  supreme  in 
purely  intellectual  acumen  or  subtlety,  and  the 
Roman  in  his  genius  for  government,  the  Jew 
was  still  more  a  master  in  things  pertaining  to 
the  spirit.  Jesus  was  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  and 
"belonged  to  the  family  and  house  of  David." 
(Luke  2:4.)  It  may  also  be  said  in  passing  that 
all  that  is  true  of  Jesus  in  this  respect  is  true, 
too,  of  John  the  Baptist,  only  John  sprang  from 
the  tribe  of  Levi  and  the  family  of  Aaron.  (Luke 
1:15.) 

Three  other  things  besides  race  are  worthy  of 
consideration  in  connection  with  the  birth  of  every 
child.  These  are  immediate  parentage,  prenatal 
influences  and  environment.  Taking  these  up  in 
the  order  in  which  I  have  just  named  them,  and 


THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS  47 

leaving  the  scientific  question  of  parthenogenesis 
for  discussion  in  another  place.  I  may  note  first 
of  all  that  Joseph  and  Mary  are  introduced  to 
us  as  among  the  most  spiritually  minded  of  their 
pious  race.  In  them  the  animal  instincts  and 
passions  are  under  the  strictest  control,  and  their 
ruling  desires  and  motives  are  drawn  from  the 
will  of  God  as  that  will  touches  them  individually, 
rather  than  as  it  reaches  them  in  a  general  way 
through  the  pages  of  their  scriptures  and  the 
voices  of  their  religious  instructors.  They  are 
personally  and  particularly  consecrated  to  all 
that  he  may  at  any  time  reveal  to  them  as  duty. 
They  are  living,  that  is  to  say,  in  conscious,  vital, 
sanctifying  and  informing  relations  with  the  di- 
vine Spirit,  just  as  were  Zecharias  and  Elizabeth 
and  those  aged  frequenters  of  the  temple  at  Jeru- 
salem, Simeon  and  Anna.  In  short,  no  parents 
could  have  been  found  for  Jesus  to  excel  in  moral 
and  religious  character  those  who  are  brought 
before  us  by  the  two  New  Testament  writers  who 
described  them. 

However  the  Church  may  finally  decide  the 
question  of  the  Virgin  Birth,  Joseph's  relation  to 
the  child  was  very  important  before  it  was  born 
as  well  as  afterwards,  for  he  stood  at  least  in 
loco  parentis  to  it  in  the  most  intimate  way  for 
weeks  or  months  before  he  took  his  young  wife  to 
Bethlehem  for  the  enrollment,  and  incidentally  the 
accouchment.  Where  the  relations  of  a  husband 
to  his  wife  are  of  the  ordinary  kind  and  he  is 


48  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

the  father  of  the  child  that  is  to  be  born,  the 
moral  and  spiritual  atmosphere  in  which  he  lives 
his  life,  whether  it  is  positively  good  or  positively 
bad,  constitutes  no  inconsiderable  part  of  those 
influences  of  the  prenatal  sort  which  are  helping 
to  give  character  and  bias  to  the  nature  of  his 
offspring.  The  constant  presence  in  a  home  of  a 
peculiarly  stealthy  imbecile  has  been  known  to 
prenatally  blast  more  than  one  child's  life,  through 
its  effects  upon  the  imagination  and  general  nerv- 
ous condition  of  the  mother.  A  mother  often 
transfers  to  her  unborn  infant's  body  the  out- 
ward things  which  impress  her  mind,  or  indelible 
marks  to  represent  them,  and  has  been  known  to 
convey  to  it  in  this  way,  and  to  an  extraordinary 
extent,  both  the  outward  appearance  and  low 
mentality  of  a  bear  or  other  animal,  by  which 
she  has  been  startled  at  some  critical  moment. 
Jaundice,  through  one  sight  of  a  person  suffer- 
ing from  it,  has  been  communicated  with  such 
force  and  effect  that  the  child  was  born  only  to 
die  of  the  malady  in  a  few  days,  while  the  mother 
herself  remained  healthy  and  vigorous,  or  too 
little  affected  by  the  disease  to  show  any  appreci- 
able symptoms  of  it.  Such  a  case  came  under 
my  own  notice  about  four  years  ago. 

It  is  related  of  Constantin  Von  Tischendorf 
that  the  remarkable  visual  powers  which  enabled 
him  to  deal  successfully  with,  ancient  manuscripts, 
which  to  most  others  were  undecipherable  were 
probably  due  to  the  fact  that  his  mother,  alarmed 


THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS  49 

at  the  peril  created  for  her  unborn  child  through 
the  effect  produced  upon  her  mind  by  a  sight 
she  had  had  of  some  blind  person,  instantly 
passed  into  unceasing  prayer;  that  it  might  never- 
theless be  born  capable  of  seeing.  This  has  been 
regarded  as  a  case  in  which  the  ruling  mental 
state  of  a  mother  resulted  in  the  double  achieve- 
ment of  superior  organs  of  sight,  to  begin  with, 
and  then  the  ambition  to  use  them  to  the  utmost 
in  the  service  of  that  God  to  whom  she  had  made 
her  continuous  petition  on  the  child's  behalf. 
Prenatal  influences  supplied  by  mothers  must  be 
classed  among  the  primary  things  in  the  lives  of 
their  children. 

Considered  from  this  point  of  view  the  stories 
of  Matthew  and  Luke  are  of  very  deep  interest 
for  students  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  If  they  are 
historical  in  their  central  testimony,  his  concep- 
tion by  Mary  was  brought  about  through  the  in- 
visible and  physically  unfelt  embrace  or  over- 
shadowing of  the  Holy  Spirit.  All  of  conscience 
and  the  religious  emotions  of  which  her  fine 
nature  was  capable  was  aroused  in  the  case,  while 
everything  pertaining  to  sexual  passion  was  either 
stilled  or  else  left  slumbering  where  it  had  never 
yet  been  awakened.  The  one  pleasure  offered  her 
was  that  of  motherhood  for  God,  and  this  was 
bound  up  with  the  terrible  peril  of  being  publicly 
disgraced  as  a  consequence  by  a  man  to  whom 
she  had  already  been  betrothed.  In  this  unre- 
served consecration  to  God  she  was  soon  joined 


50  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

by  Joseph  himself,  and  in  that  dedication  of  body 
as  well  as  spirit  they  both  continued  until  the 
child  Jesus  was  heralded  by  angels  near  Bethle- 
hem, and1  by  "a  star  in  the  East."  Thus  the  deal- 
ings of  the  Holy  Spirit  with  the  thoughts  and 
purposes  of  Mary  and  afterwards  of  Joseph, 
must  have  filled  her  with  such  a  sense  of  God, 
and  of  submission  to  and  joy  in  his  will,  as  con- 
stituted the  divinest  of  all  possible  prenatal  in- 
fluences for  the  child  she  was  to  bear.  If  we  re- 
ject the  doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  as 
a  fable  of  the  pious  imagination,  we  must  at  least 
accept  this,  unless  we  reject  also  the  doctrine 
of  the  Virgin  Birth  itself;  in  which  case  the  in- 
fluence of  heredity  in  this  instance  would  remain 
to  be  emphasized,  of  course. 

Heredity  and  prenatal  influence — if  the  Son  of 
God  actually  became  a  man,  and  not  the  mere 
phantasm  of  a  man,  to  ignore  these  two  potent 
factors  in  each  human  life  is  to  blink  out  of  sight 
matters  which  are  essential  to  anything  like  a 
complete  understanding  of  the  elements  which 
entered  into  the  personal  inheritance  and  original 
endowment  of  Jesus. 

Coming  now  to  the  early  environment  of  Jesus 
the  first  thing  to  be  taken  into  account  is  the 
fact  that  he  was  through  all  his  first  years  under 
the  immediate  guidance  of  the  strong  common- 
sense  and  spiritually  instructed  piety  of  Joseph 
and  Mary  themselves.  And  if  the  visits  of  the 
shepherds  and  the  Magi,  and  the  flight  into 


THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS  51 

Egypt  and  return  are  not  legends,  Mary  and 
Joseph  were  specially  impressed,  after  his  birth 
as  well  as  before,  regarding  the  honor  and  the 
obligation  which  had  been  thrust  upon  them  of 
bringing  up  this  child  in  the  most  particular 
way  for  God.  This  gave  a  seriousness  and  ear- 
nestness to  their  lives  which  must  have  been  dis- 
tinctly felt  by  their  acquaintances,  but  most  of 
all  by  him,  with  his  highly  sensitive  mind  and  con- 
science. That  they  were  faithful  to  their  duty 
and  opportunity  from  the  first  is  made  clear 
by  the  accounts  of  his  circumcision,  his  presenta- 
tion in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  at  the  end  of 
Mary's  days  of  seclusion,  when  the  spirit  of 
prophecy  in  Simeon  and  Anna  woke  to  such  glow- 
ing expression,  and  his  presentation  again  as  a 
Son  of  the  Law  at  the  age  of  twelve  years.  What 
his  home  had  already  been  made  to  him  came  out 
in  several  ways  on  this  occasion.  In  the  first  place 
the  boy  Jesus  stands  before  us  so  deeply  inter- 
ested in  questions  of  religion  that  he  forgets  the 
arrangements  for  the  home  journey  through  the 
liveliness  of  his  thoughts  in  this  direction.  When 
Joseph  and  Mary  after  missing  him  returned  to 
the  city  in  search  of  him,  "they  found  him  in  the 
Temple  Courts,  sitting  among  the  teachers,  now 
listening  to  them,  now  asking  them  questions, 
with  all  who  listened  to  him  marvelling  at  his 
intelligence  and  his  answers."  (Luke  2:46,  47.) 
In  reply  to  their  chiding  he  spoke  to  them  of 
the  supreme  attractions  of  his  Father's  House  in 


52  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

words  which,  if  they  mystified  them,  yet  caused 
them  to  see  at  once  that  he  was  not  casting  off 
their  authority  or  despising  their  care  or  their 
instructions,  but  that  he  had  come  to  think  of 
God  as  his  Father,  quite  probably  through  some 
word  Mary  herself  had  dropped  in  his  ear  con- 
cerning a  difference  between  his  origin  and  that 
of  his  brothers  and  sisters,  and  which  she  had  at 
least  for  the  moment  forgotten.  Finally  taking 
him  to  his  home  again  they  found  him  obedient 
during  still  other  years,  while  "he  grew  in  wis- 
dom and  gained  the  blessing  of  God  and  men." 
(Luke  2:51,52.) 

His  home  was  undoubtedly  a  great  instrument 
in  his  making.  It  must  be  remembered,  however, 
that  this  house  did  not  exist  apart  from  the 
synagogue  where  Mary  and  Joseph  worshiped 
their  God  and  studied  his  word  in  company  with 
their  neighbors,  taking  Jesus  with  them  from  Sab- 
bath to  Sabbath  and,  when  his  age  warranted  it, 
encouraging  him  to  take  his  part  in  the  exercises 
and  discussions.  Every  man  who  had  definite 
thoughts  of  his  own  and  some  ability  to  express 
them  would  find  his  opportunity  to  speak  in  his 
synagogue,  and  the  more  a  man's  utterances  ap- 
pealed to  his  fellow  students  of  the  scriptures,  the 
oftener  he  would  be  looked  to  to  address  them. 
It  can  scarcely  have  been  otherwise  than  that 
Jesus  developed  his  deep  acquaintance  with  the 
Old  Testament  writings  and  his  supreme  gifts 
as  a  teacher  quite  largely  through  the  use  he 


THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS  53 

made  of  his  opportunities  in  this  same  synagogue. 

Added  to  the  home  and  synagogue  there  were 
the  carpenter's  shop  and  the  town,  with  the  broken 
heights  surrounding  the  basin-like  site.  What- 
ever can  be  gained  in  precision  of  thought  by 
means  of  manual  training,  and  in  conscience 
towards  the  public  in  connection  with  years  of 
constant  endeavor  to  give  it  full  value  for  its 
money  in  suitable  materials  and  work  accurately 
and  faithfully  done,  Jesus  got  out  of  that  carpen- 
ter's shop.  In  it,  too,  he  met  his  fellow  townsmen 
in  a  more  informal  and  intimate  way  than  perhaps 
anywhere  else.  There  they  uncovered  their 
thoughts  and  feelings  in  the  most  unconventional 
ways  and  approached  and  discussed  the  questions 
in  which  they  were  interested,  with  the  least  pos- 
sible of  reserve.  Whether  working  in  the  pres- 
ence of  another  or  watching  another  work  has 
the  greater  power  of  provoking  the  confidences 
of  self-revelation,  who  shall  say?  And  the  man 
who  has  nothing  evil  to  hide  bears  with  him  the 
constant  challenge  to  others  to  hide  nothing  from 
him.  In  this  carpenter's  shop  Jesus  learned  very 
fast  what  was  in  men,  and  how  to  read  their  hearts 
by  means  of  the  tones  of  their  voices,  their  flit- 
ting changes  in  facial  expression,  their  uncon- 
scious gestures,  and  their  general  bearing  from 
time'  to  time,  till  at  length  he  observed  and  judged 
as  by  intuition  and  knew  his  man  almost,  if  not 
quite,  at  a  glance. 

There    was    one    characteristic    of    his    fellow 


54  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Galileans,  which  Jesus  counted  a  good  thing  even 
in  Nazareth.  This  was  their  readiness  to  die  for 
their  country  and  their  religion.  Is  it  too  much 
to  say  that  to  live  among  them  was  to  drink  in 
that  spirit  of  patriotism  which,  being  religious  at 
the  same  time  that  it  was  political,  was  also  the 
splendid  spirit  of  the  martyr?  So  with  his  un- 
sullied purity  and  deeper  spiritual  insight  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  grow  up  otherwise  than  as 
the  strongest  and  most  unselfish  patriot  of  them 
all.  They  told  him  of  their  expectations  touch- 
ing the  early  coming  of  their  Messiah  to  free  them 
from  the  yoke  of  Rome,  and  his  eyes  kindled  as 
he  listened.  At  first  nothing  was  clear  to  his 
mind  but  the  fact  that  the  prophecies  must  be 
fulfilled,  and  that  the  time  was  near.  He  no  more 
knew  on  which  side  God's  anointed  would  arise, 
nor  on  what  precise  lines  he  would  proceed  with 
his  work  when  he  did  appear,  than  his  neighbors 
did.  But  no  one  felt  so  deeply  as  he,  or  studied 
as  he  did  the  words  of  the  prophets  about  the 
Coming  One. 

By  and  by  both  the  shop  and  the  town  grew 
too  narrow  for  the  tumult  of  his  thoughts,  and 
he  was  often  under  the  open  sky  alone,  drinking 
almost  unconsciously  the  lessons  which  the  lily 
and  the  growing  grains  and  the  grasses,  the 
beasts  of  the  field  and  the  birds  of  the  air,  the 
shadowed  gorge  and  the  towering  height,  the 
glory  of  the  rising  and  setting  sun  and  of  the 
nightly  sky,  the  clouds  bathed  in  sunlight,  chas- 


THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS  55 

ing-  each  other  in  light  fleeciness  across  the  face 
of  the  moon,  or  gathering  blackness  and  bursting 
in  loud  storm  upon  the  world,  have  to  teach  the 
willing  hearted.  His  Father  spoke  to  him  through 
nature,  as  well  as  through  man  and  through  the 
scriptures. 

Probably  Jesus  visited  Jerusalem  from  time  to 
time  in  connection  with  the  great  yearly  festivals, 
and  as  he  grew  somewhat  familiar  with  both  it 
and  the  people  along  the  road  or  roads  by  which 
he  journeyed  back  and  forth,  became  more  and 
more  deeply  convinced  that  the  great  basal  need 
everywhere  was  moral  and  spiritual,  and  that  no 
political  movement  or  achievement  could  be  much 
worth  while  to  the  Messiah,  or  anyone  else,  until 
this  need  was  met.  Brooding  thus  there  some- 
where came  to  him  a  day  in  which  his  heart  al- 
most stopped  its  beating,  while  he  listened  to  a 
voice  coming  out  of  that  Infinite,  which  is  al- 
ways nearness  as  well  as  distance,  and  saying — 
You  yourself  are  the  One  for  whose  coming  your 
people  wait.  Whether  this  voice  came  to  him  be- 
bore  he  learned  that  his  cousin  John  was  already 
heralding  the  Coming  One,  who  shall  say?  All 
we  are  sure  of  is  that  the  voice  was  insistent  and 
accompanied  by  such  authority  that  he  yielded, 
sure  that  it  was  no  other  than  that  of  his  Father. 
Meantime  during  all  these  years  he  had  been 
building  up  such  a  piety  as  had  made  him  a 
recognized  pattern  among  the  good,  and  probably 
also  an  offense  to  the  wrongly  disposed  about 


56  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

him.  When  has  it  ever  been  different  with  the 
wholly  consecrated  ones  of  our  earth  ?  And  would 
it  not  be  most  so  in  the  case  of  the  incomparable 
man?  Accordingly  when  Jesus  presented  him- 
self at  the  Jordan  for  baptism  by  John,  he  was 
immediately  met  by  the  strongest  possible  testi- 
mony to  his  own  spiritual  attainments.  John,  who 
had  declared  of  the  Coming  One  beforehand — 
"I  am  not  worthy  to  stoop  down  and  unfasten  his 
sandals"  (Mk.  1 :7)  delayed  Jesus  now  with 
the  word — "It  is  I  who  need  to  be  baptized  by 
you ;  why  then  do  you  come  to  me  ?"  and  Jesus 
had  to  overrule  his  objections  by  insisting:  "Let 
it  be  so  for  the  present,  since  it  is  fitting  for  us 
thus  to  satisfy  every  claim  of  religion."  (Matt. 
3:14,  15.) 

The  point  which  stands  out  clearly  here  is  that 
in  the  making  of  Jesus  the  supreme  factor  was 
always  the  revealed  will  of  God.  Both  John  and 
Jesus  were  moving  on  lines  which  were  indicated 
to  themselves  alone,  to  begin  with.  Two  things 
had  to  be  made  plain  to  John — first  that  the  Mes- 
siah was  somewhere  in  Israel  and  about  to  be  re- 
vealed and  then  that  he  was  the  one  man  to  act  the 
part  of  his  forerunner  and  Herald;  while  Jesus 
had  to  become  convinced  that  he  was  himself  the 
Messiah  and  in  duty  bound  as  such  to  go  to  John 
for  Baptism.  Neither  was,  or  could  have  been, 
induced  to  do  what  he  did  until  he  was  satisfied 
that  his  inwardly  received  instructions  were  from 
God  and  unmistakable;  and  always  afterwards 


THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS  57 

each  spoke  of  himself  as  one  who  had  been  sent 
by  God  to  say  and  do  the  very  things,  which  he 
was  both  defending  and  emphasizing  when  he  made 
this  claim.  It  is  also  true  that  each  took  the  step 
first  required  of  him,  with  no  precise  knowledge 
as  to  what  his  second  step  would  be.  The  con- 
secration of  Jesus  to  the  work  of  his  Messiahship 
was,  therefore,  an  all-embracing  act,  as  far  as 
his  own  individual  life  was  concerned,  and  in- 
cluded duties  and  experiences  of  many  sorts  which 
he  was  to  perceive  and  face  only  as  his  career 
developed.  A  consecration  of  this  kind  is  not 
entered  into  excepting  through  a  faith  in  God, 
which  commits  everything  for  good  and  all  to  his 
almighty  wisdom'  and  love,  and  looks  to  and  trusts 
him  for  guidance  and  all  desirable  protections 
from  day  to  day ;  and  nothing  can  be  so  humbling 
and,  at  the  same  time,  so  exalting  to  the  human 
spirit  as  this.  In  myself  I  am  nothing,  but  in 
my  God  I  am  always  fully  informed  and  duly 
strengthened  for  my  tasks  as  they  arise,  was 
the  testimony  of  Jesus  from  first  to  last.  Al- 
ways he  had  a  sufficiency,  yet  was  never  self-suffi- 
cient ;  he  was  always  complete,  yet  never  per- 
fected. For  the  task  of  one  day  was  constantly 
being  succeeded  by  the  more  difficult  task  of  the 
next,  and  it  was  his,  as  it  is  ours,  to  receive  wis- 
dom to  see  and  courage  to  do  only  in  the  measure 
demanded  by  the  conditions  of  each  given  time. 
.His  career  was  always  being  made  for  him  and 
he  for  his  career.  That  it  was  not,  because  it 


58  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

could  not  have  been  otherwise  with  him  who  was 
"in  all  points  made  like  his  brothers"  (Heb.  2:17) 
that  he  might  become  "the  Leader  and  Perfect 
Example  of  our  faith"  (Heb.  12:2)  is  one  of  the 
claims  put  forward  by  the  writer  of  the  New 
Testament  letter  to  the  Hebrews. 

Another  thing,  which  as  a  matter  of  course 
entered  into  the  making  of  Jesus,  was  a  special 
divine  enduement  for  the  purposes  of  the  work 
which  it  was  his  to  do.  This  enduement  is  rep- 
resented as  having  been  given  him  in  addition  to 
all  that  he  had  received  for  the  development  and 
maturing  of  his  sinless  manhood,  and  for  reach- 
ing the  decisive  conclusion  that  he  himself  was  the 
Coming  One  whom  John  was  announcing  in  com- 
plete ignorance  as  to  his  identity.  Another 
point  clearly  indicated  is  that  Jesus,  realizing 
his  need  of  additional  divine  aid,  left  the  water 
with  which  he  had  been  baptized,  praying  as  he 
advanced,  and  was  then  baptized  with  the  Holy 
Spirit.  And  the  next  record  is  that  it  was 
through  the  influence  of  this  enduement  rather 
than  of  his  own  motion,  that  he  very  soon  with- 
drew to  the  wilds  to  battle  with  and  overcome 
those  popular  ideas  concerning  the  Messiah  in 
the  midst  of  which  he  had  grown  up,  and  which, 
had  he  been  guided  by  them,  would  have  blighted 
his  career  by  ruining  his  personal  character  and 
losing  him  the  favor  of  God.  No  less  than  this 
is  implied  in  the  three  answers  which  at  last  he 


THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS  59 

was  able  to  draw  from  the  heart  of  the  scriptures 
which  he  knew  so  well — 

1st.  "It  is  not  on  bread  alone  that  man  is  to 
live,  but  on  every  word  that  comes  from  the 
mouth  of  God." 

2nd.  "Thou  shalt  not  tempt  the  Lord  thy 
God." 

3rd.  "Thou  shalt  do  homage  to  the  Lord  thy 
God,  and  worship  him  only." 

Each  of  these  shows  how  strictly  personal  he 
felt  his  battle  was,  and  that  he  had  been  drawn 
into  a  tremendous  struggle  for  the  integrity 
before  God  of  his  own  manhood.  The  principle 
upon  which  he  acted  was  that  there  is  no  genuine 
integrity  whatever  which  does  not  include  all  that 
God  demands,  and  that  a  man  can  really  serve 
his  people  in  the  capacity  of  leader  only  as  he 
ignores  or  rejects  everything  in  their  ideals  which 
is  not  in  harmony  with  God's  revealed  will.  The 
fierceness  of  the  battle  he  waged  in  spite  of  the 
richness  and  freshness  of  his  divine  enduement 
(or  was  it  in  a  sense  because  of  this  enduement?) 
is  evidenced  by  the  forty  days  of  fasting  credited 
to  him  in  the  accounts  we  have  of  it.  It  was  no 
set  mechanical  fast  such  as  John's  disciples  and 
the  Pharisees  kept,  but  one  of  the  natural,  be- 
cause strictly  spiritual,  sort.  The  combat  was  so 
severe  and  continuous  that  he  had  no  attention 
to  spare  for  the  calls  of  hunger,  until  his  victory 
was  finally  won. 


60  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Here  then  is  another  factor  which  entered  into 
the  making  of  Jesus,  according  to  his  biographers. 
The  fine  unbreakable  steel  of  his  spirit  was  forged 
in  the  fiercest  fires  of  temptation,  that  it  might  be 
truly  tempered  in  the  sovereign,  holy  and  loving 
will  of  his  Father.  His  biographers  make  much 
of  this  fact.  They  point  out  again  and  again 
that  he  who  was  "in  all  points  made  like  his  broth- 
ers," was  also  "in  all  points  tempted  in  like  man- 
ner with  them."  (Heb.  4:15.)  And  they  most 
distinctly  link  the  idea  of  suffering  with  this  fact 
of  temptation.  "He  himself  suffered  under  temp- 
tation" (Heb.  2:18)  is  the  ground  on  which  the 
writer  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews  bases  his  teach- 
ing that  he  is  now  "a  merciful  as  well  as  faithful 
High  Priest  in  man's  relations  with  God."  And 
he  plainly  declares  besides  that  this  was  one  of 
the  ends  kept  distinctly  in  view  by  the  Father 
through  the  whole  process.  He  even  goes  fur- 
ther and  states  that,  since  the  Son  of  God  was  a 
man,  there  was  no  other  way,  because  it  is  only 
through  having  himself  suffered  by  having  been 
tempted,  that  any  man  can  be  brought  into  a 
genuine  or  intelligent  sympathy  with  those  who 
are  tempted.  Indeed  he  startles  us  by  at  least 
seeming  to  go  farther  still,  and  to  state  by  impli- 
cation that  the  same  sort  of  necessity  exists  in 
the  nature  of  God  himself;  and  that  the  incarna- 
tion has  as  one  of  its  ends  the  building  up  of  an 
intelligent  and  particular  sympathy  with  men  in 
the  very  heart  of  the  divine  Father.  And  he  leaves 


THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS  61 

us  asking  whether  the  sympathy  of  God  with  men 
has  not  always  been  the  mighty  living  thing  which 
was  more  than  guessed  of  old,  because  the  incar- 
nation was  a  fact  in  the  divine  heart  "before  the 
creation  of  the  universe,"  when,  as  Paul  assured 
the  Ephesians,  they  "were  chosen  in  their  union 
with  Christ."  (Eph.  1:4.)  According  to  these 
writers  one  thing  is  quite  certain.  All  the 
thought  and  feeling  of  God  touching  our  race 
was  from  the  very  first  bound  up  with  all  he  pur- 
posed and  felt  concerning  the  incarnation.  The 
two  were  absolutely  inseparable,  and  the  heart  of 
God  could  not  have  been  what  it  has  always  been, 
had  this  not  been  so. 

The  ministry  of  suffering  in  the  making  of 
Jesus  is  still  further  emphasized  by  the  writer  of 
"Hebrews."  So  it  is  perhaps  from  the  view-point 
of  his  declarations  that  the  fact  can  be  best  ap- 
proached. It  may  be  enough  to  quote  these  two 
words  from  this  author  to  show  how  definitely  he 
thought  that  Jesus  was  gradually  fitted  for  the 
place  which  he  now  holds  and  the  power  which  he 
wields  in  connection  with  the  divine  scheme  for  the 
redemption  of  our  race,  and  what  an  important 
part  his  sufferings  played  in  the  process : 

"It  is  indeed  fitting  that  God,  for  whom  and 
through  whom  all  things  exist,  should,  when  lead- 
ing many  sons  to  glory,  make  the  author  of  their 
salvation  perfect  through  suffering  (Heb.  2:10); 
and 

"Son  though  he  was  he  learnt  obedience  from 


62  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

his  sufferings;  and  being  made  perfect,  he  be- 
came to  all  those  who  obey  him  the  source  of  eter- 
nal salvation."  (Heb.  5:8,  9.) 

The  fitness  of  a  person  for  any  given  office  or 
vocation  must  always  depend  first  upon  what  he 
definitely  knows,  and  secondly  upon  what  he  really 
is.  Now  no  man  can  ever  know  more  than  he  has 
had  the  time  and  opportunity  to  learn,  nor  can 
anyone  be  strong  and  capable,  or  recognized  as 
such,  who  has  not  been  subjected  to  appropriate 
tests.  To  understand  and  appreciate  the  needs 
of  men  one  must  not  only  be  a  man  himself,  but 
must  also  have  endured  the  sorest  trials  through 
which  they  pass.  For  he  can  know  these  dis- 
tresses for  what  they  actually  are  only  through 
having  experienced  them.  And  if  a  man's  work 
is  to  be  that  of  relieving  and  comforting  his  fel- 
lows, this  is  the  only  line  along  which  he  can  be 
made  competent  for  his  tasks.  Our  writer  boldly 
applies  all  this  to  Jesus.  He  declares  that  he 
was  born  a  babe,  and  had  to  be  trained  for  the 
office  of  High  Priest  and  Savior.  And  since  his 
work  was  to  be  that  of  lifting  men  to  the  height 
of  complete  obedience  to  God,  even  where  that 
obedience  might  involve  them  in  the  loss  of  every- 
thing, including  life  itself,  he  had  himself  to  go 
this  way.  Only  so  could  he  learn  what  obedience 
to  the  utmost  is,  or  have  it  called  forth  and  tested 
in  his  own  life,  and  so  be  fitted  to  lead  and  inspire 
others  along  that  path. 

The  lot  of  other  men  was  often  to  suffer  be- 


THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS  63 

cause  they  sinned.  This  was  not  the  case  with 
him.  Always  when  he  suffered  it  was  because  he 
obeyed  his  Father.  It  was  so  in  the  wilderness. 
Had  he  yielded,  he  would  no  longer  have  suffered, 
being  tempted.  Instead  he  would  have  suffered, 
having  sinned.  It  was  the  same  in  Gethsemane 
and  on  the  cross.  Had  he  turned  back  and  re- 
fused to  enter  the  garden,  he  would  have  escaped 
the  agony  of  that  sweat  of  blood  out  of  which  he 
emerged  triumphant,  and  experienced  instead  the 
deadlier  tortures  of  an  accusing  conscience  and 
his  Father's  frown.  And  the  cross,  if  he  had 
reached  it  nevertheless,  would  not  have  wrung 
from  him  the  same  "My  God,  My  God,  why  hast 
thou  forsaken  me?"  (Mark  15:34),  but  one  of 
deeper  anguish  still,  and  of  a  lasting  awfulness. 
His  prayer  was  always  that  he  might  be  lifted  to 
the  full  height  of  his  Father's  will  concerning  him. 
His  agonies,  his  cries,  his  tears  are  so  many  proofs 
of  what  his  obedience  cost  him.  And  the  lessons 
he  learned  were  for  him  only  as  they  were  for 
others  besides.  He  recognized  this.  In  his  own 
estimation  he  was  the  kernel  of  wheat  that  falls 
into  the  ground  and  dies  rather  than  "remain 
solitary."  (Jno.  12:24.)  The  purpose  of  his 
obedience  was  manward  at  the  same  time  that  it 
was  Godward.  He  knew  indeed  that  it  was  only 
in  dying  for  his  fellows,  because  in  the  wrong- 
headedness  which  arose  from  their  wronghearted- 
ness  they  would  have  it  so,  he  could  continue  his 
life  of  obedience.  "This,"  he  said,  "is  the  com- 


64  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

mand  which  I  received  from  my  Father."  (Jno. 
10:18.)  So  through  his  sufferings  he  was  made 
complete  in  and  for  the  service  of  men,  at  the  same 
time  that  he  was  made  complete  in  and  for  his 
service  towards  God. 

The  final  teaching  of  these  writers  is  that  it 
was  strictly  in  view  of  this  acquired  and  fully  de- 
veloped fitness  of  Jesus  that  he  was  raised  to  his 
present  glory  and  service  in  connection  with  the 
salvation  of  our  race.  It  was  because  he  at 
length  reached  his  fully  tested  perfection  in  obe- 
dience on  behalf  of  others  that  "God  himself  pro- 
nounced him  a  High  Priest  of  the  order  of  Mel- 
chiezedek."  (Heb.  5:10.)  To  these  words  Paul 
adds: 

"He  appeared  among  us  as  a  man,  and  still 
further  humbled  himself  by  submitting  to  death — 
to  death  on  a  cross.  And  that  is  why  God  raised 
him  to  the  very  highest  place,  and  gave  him  the 
Name  which  stands  above  all  other  names." 
(Phil.  2:9.) 

He  who  was  born  the  son  of  Mary  was  fash- 
ioned by  the  divine  will  until,  made  complete  for 
the  vast  work  which  he  became  a  man  to  do,  he 
was  lifted  by  God  to  the  place  of  supreme  honor 
and  opportunity  in  connection  with  all  the  needs 
and  possibilities  of  our  race,  with  the  assurance 
that  by  this  means  all  these  possibilities  will  cer- 
tainly be  realized.  And  since  every  man  must 
grow  with  the  growth  of  the  undertaking  which 
he  is  successfully  carrying  forward,  and  particti- 


THE  MAKING  OF  JESUS  65 

larly  in  cases  which  are  constantly  presenting 
fresh  and  difficult  problems,  it  is  not  unreason- 
able to  think  of  Jesus  as  one  who  is  still  having 
his  capacities  developed,  while  he  advances  in  self- 
realization  through  the  steady  exercise  of  his 
powers,  and  moves  onward  toward  the  day  in 
which  the  finished  product  of  all  his  toils  is  to  be 
taken  over  by  the  Father  himself.  (I  Cor. 
15:24-28.) 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS 

Each  child  begins  life  by  studying  objects  ex- 
ternal to  itself,  including  its  own  fingers  and  toes. 
Then  it  slowly  finds  out  how  it  should  adjust  itself 
towards  these  things  and  persons,  and  by  and  by 
reaches  its  first  clear  I-ought.  But  so  dim  is  its 
vision  of  both  the  inward  and  outward  realities  in 
the  case  that  for  years  it  has  to  be  continually 
recalled  from  a  world  of  day-dreams  into  which 
it  is  forever  being  led  by  its  imagination, 
prompted  by  its  instincts;  and  sometimes  physi- 
cal maturity  is  reached  by  an  individual  who  is 
still  dreaming  of  himself  as  something  he  is  not, 
and  looking  out  upon  the  world  about  him  through 
a  mist  of  unreality,  which  either  pains  or  delights 
his  eyes. 

To  be  able  to  take  the  true  measure  of  one's 
powers  through  reading  one's  nature  correctly, 
particularly  at  the  moment  when  the  task  of  one's 
life  has  to  be  faced,  and  to  know  that  the  thing 
which  seems  to  challenge  one  is  really  his  own 
task,  is  one  of  the  essential  things  in  connection 
with  the  opening  of  a  great  and  successful  career. 
It  is  this  ability  which  inspires  men  with  that 
sense  of  obligation  in  connection  with  given  tasks 

66 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS     67 

which  we  speak  of  as  a  call — a1  divine  call,  because 
it  is  never  developed  apart  from  that  voice  which 
reaches  us  from  the  hidden  deeps  of  the  Infinite 
Personality.  The  higher  the  task  the  greater  the 
need. 

The  other  thing  essential  to  the  greatest  ca- 
reers is  that  abiding  sense  of  the  Infinite  Person- 
ality, which,  penetrating  all  veils  and  over-leap- 
ing all  barriers,  arrives  at  the  place  where  IT  is 
known  as  HE,  His  presence  as  embracing,  inter- 
penetrating and  upholding  all  things  and  all  per- 
sons, his  plan  as  one  and  of  infinite  scope,  the 
purpose  associated  with  it  as  incapable  of  being 
finally  thwarted  and  therefore  certain  to  reach  all 
its  far  off  goals,  and  his  nature  as  one  in  which 
all  great  attributes  inhere  complete  and  perfect 
Heyond  our  highest  dreams.  When  God  has  be- 
come such  to  a  living  soul  his  service  seems  to  that 
soul  almost  too  high  and  holy  to  be  attempted  at 
all,  and  we  see  an  Isaiah  standing  before  his  vision 
with  a  "Woe  is  me"  breaking  from  his  lips.  But 
as  he  stays  on  with  his  vision  a  purifying  and  a 
power  cleanse  and  transform  him  until  he  accepts 
his  task  with  his  "Here  am  I,  send  me,"  trumpeted 
to  the  four  winds  by  a  consecration  which  is  pre- 
pared to  go  all  lengths. 

In  the  realm  of  consciousness  Jesus  had  to  be- 
gin at  the  beginning,  like  every  other  babe,  and 
like  every  other  human  being  he  passed  in  its  turn 
through  each  stage  from  first  to  last.  This  at 
least  is  how  his  biographers  state  the  case.  Our 


68  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

first  glimpse  of  him  as  a  conscious  being  uncovers 
for  us  three  phases  of  his  inner  life.  The  first  of 
these  is  intellectual,  the  others  moral  and  spir- 
itual. He  was  twelve  years  of  age  at  the  time, 
and  had  accompanied  Joseph  and  Mary  to  Jeru- 
salem. Their  duties  done,  Joseph  and  Mary 
joined  the  company  from  Galilee  and  started  on 
their  homeward  journey.  Towards  the  close  of 
the  first  day  of  travel  they  missed  Jesus,  and 
when  they  discovered  that  he  was  certainly  not  in 
their  group  at  all,  they  at  once  returned  to  the 
city  in  search  of  him.  There  they  found  him  the 
following  day  sitting  among  the  Rabbis  listening 
to  them  and  asking  them  questions,  which,  with 
his  answers  to  their  return  quizzings,  awakened 
their  wonder.  He  had  even  then  become  conscious 
of  the  existence  and  importance  of  some  of  life's 
chief  problems.  He  did  not  know  everything. 
He  had  simply  gone  far  for  his  years.  And  soon 
Joseph  and  Mary  were  astonished  in  their  turn, 
for  when  she  chided  him  for  what  she  regarded  as 
his  unfilial  behavior  his  answer  conveyed  a  rebuke 
along  the  same  lines : 

"What  made  you  search  for  me?  Did  not  you 
know  that  I  must  be  in  my  Father's  house?"  So 
already  his  consciousness  had  been  invaded,  and 
was  permeated,  by  the  fact  of  his  divine  Sonship, 
and  his  whole  being  was  responding  in  happy  obe- 
dience to  the  highest  authority  we  men  can  ever 
know.  This  is  at  once  the  least  and  the  most  we 
can  safely  affirm.  His  consciousness  was  then, 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS     69 

as  always,  distinct  from  that  of  his  Father;  and 
that  it  was  a  truly  human  consciousness  in  the  es- 
timation of  Luke  is  most  clearly  proven  by  that 
writer's  next  word: 

"However  he  went1  down  with  them  to  Nazareth, 
and  submitted  himself  to  their  control  .  .  . 
And  Jesus  grew  in  wisdom  as  he  grew  in  years, 
and  'gained  the  blessing  of  God  and  man.' ' 
(Comp.  I  Sam.  2:26.) 

To  be  conscious  of  duty  to  God  as  our  Father 
as  carrying  with  it  the  highest  possible  obliga- 
tion, and  of  ordinary  filial  duty  as  standing  in  the 
closest  relations  with  that,  is  to  have  reached  the 
true  level  of  human  beings ;  and  to  grow  in  wis- 
dom as  we  grow  in  years  in  such  a  fashion  as  to 
deserve  the  commendation  of  God,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  men,  on  the  other,  is  to  pass  one's 
youth  in  the  one  truly  normal  way ;  and  to  the 
very  extent  to  which  an  individual  falls  below 
that  he  is  a  sinner  and  abnormal.  In  both  his 
inner  consciousness  and  outward  conduct  the  life 
of  Jesus  was  conformed  to  the  highest  human 
standards  from  the  first;  and  the  highest  human 
standards  are  the  only  true  ones.  But  let  us  go 
a  step  further. 

All  growth  in  knowledge  implies  ignorance,  for 
knowledge  and  ignorance,  like  light  and  darkness, 
cannot  exist  in  one  and  the  same  place  at  one  and 
the  same  time.  If  there  is  nothing  of  one  to  re- 
cede in  a  given  mind  there  can  take  place  in  that 
mind  no  increase  of  the  other.  This  statement 


70  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

would  be  quite  superfluous  but  for  the  fact  that 
so  many  men  have  learned  to  do  their  thinking 
about  Jesus  under  the  influence  of  the  theory  that 
he  wasi  always  practically  omniscient,  and  so  quite 
unconsciously  to  blink  out  of  sight  the  fact  that 
he  began  his  human  career  in  the  stall  at  Bethle- 
hem with  a  mind  as  completely  unfurnished  as  that 
of  any  babe  of  to-day.  All  thinking  about  the 
person  of  Jesus  which  stands  associated  with  the 
virtual  denial  of  this  first  postulate  of  Matthew, 
Luke  and  the  writer  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews, 
is  necessarily  false  to  a  degree. 

Jesus  never  forgot  the  incompleteness  of  his 
knowledge,  and  never  shrank  from  confessing  it 
either  by  implication  or  direct  statement.  Apart 
from  it  his  temptations,  his  fears  and  his  ago- 
nized prayers  could  never  have  taken  their  places 
in  his  life.  His  consciousness  of  ignorance  made 
for  him,  as  it  has  made  for  each  other  member  of 
our  race,  some  of  his  sorest  trials.  But  for  it 
our  New  Testaments  would  never  have  contained 
the  words : 

"Our  High  Priest  is  not  one  unable  to  sympa- 
thize with  our  weaknesses,  but  one  who  has  been  in 
every  way  tempted,  exactly  as  we  have  been  .  .  . 
Jesus  in  the  days  of  his  earthly  life  offered 
prayers  and  supplications,  with  earnest  cries  and 
tears,  to  him  who  was  able  to  save  him  from 
death;  and  he  was  heard  because  of  his  devout 
submission."  (Heb.  4:15;  5:7.)  Each  man's 
consciousness  is  continually  revealing  itself  in  his 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS     71 

deeds  and  words.  It  is  because  he  perceives  or 
judges  himself  to  be  this  or  the  other  that  any 
given  man  takes  the  place  he  does  before  the 
world.  John  the  Son  of  Zachariah  and  Elizabeth 
perceived  or  judged  himself  to  be  the  herald  of  the 
long  expected  Messiah.  Therefore  he  stepped 
forth  from  the  wilderness  seclusion  into  which  he 
had  retired  for  the  completion  of  the  deep  mus- 
ings, which  had  been  kindling  his  consecrated  de- 
sire and  imagination,  and  began  to  declare  the 
kingdom  of  God  at  hand,  and  to  preach  the  bap- 
tism of  repentance,  that  his  people  might  expe- 
rience such  a  divine  forgiveness  as  would  fit  them 
to  enter  and  act  their  holy  part  in  that  kingdom. 
And  over  against  this  consciousness  of  John  stood 
that  of  Jesus  by  means  of  which  he  perceived  or 
judged  that  he  was  the  long  looked  for  Messiah 
himself.  For  how  many  days  or  weeks  either  of 
them  was  aware  of  his  true  character  and  destiny 
before  taking  the  inevitable  step,  we  are  not  in- 
formed, but  there  was  a  definite  moment  when  the 
inner  eye  caught  the  vision,  or  the  inner  tribunal 
rendered  the  verdict,  in  each  case.  Prior  to  that 
moment  character  and  career  alike  were  for  many 
years  not  even  surmised,  then  for  a  longer  or 
shorter  time  surmised  only,  but  then  and  always 
afterwards  neither  could  have  taken  any  other 
course  than  he  did  take,  without  consciously 
withdrawing  himself  from  the  direction  of  God. 
This  was  as  true  of  John  as  of  Jesus,  and 
as  true  of  him  who  "was  in  all  points 


72  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

made  like  his  Brothers"  (Heb.  2:27)  as  of  John. 

What  a  true  man  once  sees  he  can  never  unsee. 
And  no  true  man  can  put  his  hand  to  the  plough 
and  afterwards  look  back.  (Luke  9:62.)  So 
John  and  Jesus  met  at  the  Jordan  and  Jesus 
was  baptized  by  John  "to  satisfy  every  claim  of 
religion."  (Matt.  3:15.)  In  that  act  the  con- 
secration of  both  reached  completeness.  John 
had  now  performed  the  supreme  act  connected  with 
his  mission,  and  Jesus  had  definitely  and  publicly 
devoted  himself  to  his  Messianic  career,  receiv- 
ing a  divine  as  well  as  a  human  baptism  in  con- 
firmation of  his  personal  convictions.  (Matt. 
3:16.) 

Still  he  did  not  enter  at  once  upon  the  work 
which  lay  before  him.  Why?  His  ignorance 
stood  in  the  way,  and  he  realized  the  fact.  Two 
wholly  different  paths  lay  before  him,  both 
wrapped  in  mists  which  were  for  the  moment  quite 
impenetrable  even  to  his  clear  vision.  Like  his 
brothers  he  was  compelled  to  study  each  new 
situation,  and  only  thus  could  he  know  it  for  what 
it  really  was.  He  was  true  to  the  Divine  Spirit 
which  had  come  upon  him  and  that  Spirit  led  him 
into  the  seclusion  of  the  wilderness.  Arrived  there 
he  became  so  absorbed  in  the  study  of  his  problem 
that  he  forgot  food,  and  so  disturbed,  let  us  be 
assured,  by  the  difficulties  facing  him  in  the  path 
which  soon  began  to  reveal  itself  to  him  as  the 
only  one  he  could  tread  in  the  company  of  his 
Father,  that  forty  days  and  forty  nights  passed 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS     73 

before  he  could  enter  that  path  with  confidence. 
Mark,  as  well  as  Matthew  and  Luke,  tell  us  of 
this  experience  and  Matthew  and  Luke  agree  that 
the  specific  temptation  of  this  period  was  to  make 
an  improper  use  of  the  power  with  which  he  had 
been  endued,  and  that  this  temptation  looked  in 
three  directions — the  supply  of  his  own  physical 
need  without  due  reference  to  the  will  of  God; 
the  adoption  of  presumptuous  sensational  and 
spectacular  methods  for  advertising  his  person 
and  mission ;  and  the  attempt  to  win  world-wide 
dominion  after  the  prevalent  political  type,  that 
is  to  say,  through  ignoring  the  universal  Father- 
hood of  God  and  resorting  to  physical  force. 

When  Jesus  emerged  from  this  season  of  deep 
reflection  he  knew  himself  as  the  Prince  of  Peace 
and  the  prophet  of  the  non-combatant.  Once  for 
all  he  had  decided  that  none  of  his  servants,  ex- 
cepting the  slow-learning  yet  fiery-tempered 
Peter,  nor  even  the  sinless  angels  of  his  Father, 
could  do  deeds  of  physical  violence  either  to  pro- 
tect him  personally,  or  to  further  the  interests 
of  his  work.  (Matt.  26:  52-54;  John  18:36.) 
Accordingly  we  are  told  by  Luke  that  when, 
"moved  by  the  power  of  the  Spirit  Jesus  returned 
to  Galilee  .  .  .  and  went  on  the  Sabbath 
into  the  synagogue  at  Nazareth"  he  read  from 
the  book  of  the  Prophet  Isaiah — 

"The  spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me 
For  lie  has  consecrated  me  to  bring  Good  News  to 
the  poor. 


74  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

He  has  sent  me  to  proclaim  release  to  the  captives 

and  restoration  of  sight  to  the  blind, 
To  set  the  oppressed  at  liberty, 
To  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord." 

All  his  wonders  were  to  be  accomplished  by 
spiritual  means  and  through  the  application  of 
righteous  laws.  Matthew  was  so  impressed  by 
this  fact  that  when  Jesus  responded  to  the  Phar- 
isaic plots  to  put  him  to  death  by  seeking  com- 
plete privacy  in  a  spirit  which  raised  its  voice 
and  its  hand  only  to  comfort  and  heal  every  dis- 
eased and  distressed  one  who  came  within  their 
reach,  he  declared  that  all  this  was  "in  fulfill- 
ment of  these  words  in  the  prophet  Isaiah — 

"  'Behold !  the  Servant  of  my  Choice, 

My  Beloved,  in  whom  my  heart  delights ! 

I  will  breathe  my  spirit  upon  him, 

And  he  shall  announce  a  time  of  judgment  to  the 

Gentiles, 

He  shall  not  contend  nor  cry  aloud, 
Neither  shall  any  one  hear  his  voice  in  the  streets ; 
A  bruised  reed  he  will  not  break, 
And  a  smouldering  wick  he  will  not  quench, 
Till  he  has  brought  the  judgment  to  a  victorious  issue. 
And  on  his  name  shall  the  Gentiles  rest  their  hopes !'  " 

(Matt.  12:14-21) 

Another  incident  in  harmony  with  this  decision 
of  Jesus  may  be  cited  here.  When  after  he  had 
fed  a  multitude  of  five  thousand,  besides  women 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS     75 

and  children,  and  "his  disciples  had  filled  twelve 
baskets  with  the  pieces  of  the  five  barley  loaves 
which  were  left  after  all  had  eaten,  and  he  dis- 
covered that  they  were  intending  to  come  and 
carry  him  off  to  make  him  a  king,"  who  could 
feed  a  prodigious  army  of  fighting  men  with  little 
or  nothing  in  the  shape  of  a  commissariat  depart- 
ment !  "he  retired  again  up  the  hill,  quite 
alone,"  horror-stricken  and  discomfited — (Jno. 
6:12-15). 

Slowly  and  late  it  would  seem  to  us  from  the 
evidence  before  us,  Jesus  became  aware  of  a  very 
painful  relationship  which  it  was  his  to  sustain 
towards  his  people — the  relationship  of  Judge. 
He  saw  that  he  would  be  compelled  to  judge  them 
as  a  nation  and  condemn  all  but  a  remnant. 
Jerusalem  and  its  temple  would  disappear,  amid 
unspeakable  horrors,  and  that  within  the  life  time 
of  some  into  whose  faces  he  looked  as  he  taught. 
So  intense  was  his  patriotism  that  he  could  not 
contemplate  this  prospect  without  losing  his  self- 
composure,  sometimes  even  to  bitter  tears  and 
words  broken  by  sobs.  (Matt.  23:37;  Luke  19: 
41-44;  Luke  23:  27-31.)  So  Jesus  was  more  and 
more  consciously  burdened  as  he  approached  his 
cross.  Elsewhere  I  shall  try  to  show  that  the  cup 
he  could  scarcely  bring  himself  to  drink  was  this 
bitter  cup  of  becoming  the  condemning  judge  for 
his  people  as  a  whole.  Readers  of  John  15:22, 
24  will  see  how  the  terrible  fact  invaded  the  quiet 
of  his  spirit  even  while  he  was  making  himself 


76  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

the  comforter  of  his  disciples  in  the  stillness  of 
the  Upper  Chamber. 

His  office  of  Savior  to  his  own  people  was  never 
absent  from  his  thoughts  and  he  was  always  con- 
sciously yearning  over  them.  It  was  his  to  have 
saved  them  from  their  sins  first,  and  through  that 
to  have  saved  them  from  utter  political  and  social 
disruption  and  disorganization.  Hence  it  was 
that  he  took  up  John's  message  and  made  it  the 
first  theme  in  the  preaching  of  his  disciples,  who, 
according  to  John's  gospel,  soon  surpassed  John 
the  Baptist  himself  in  the  numbers  they  were  able 
to  bring  to  repentance  and  baptize. 

But,  as  we  have  already  seen,  he  was  less  and 
less  appreciated  as  a  Savior  and  more  and  more 
desired  as  a  king  of  the  ordinary  worldly  sword- 
bearing  and  war-waging  type.  His  people  dis- 
appointed him  and  he  in  turn  disappointed  them. 
They  would  not  follow  him  into  spiritual  union 
with  his  Father,  and  he  could  not  give  himself 
to  them  as  the  ruler  they  craved.  As  he  became 
increasingly  conscious  of  this  impossible  situation, 
and  found  that  every  wonderful  deed  that  he 
wrought  was  so  misinterpreted  that  it  only  served 
to  estrange  them  more  and  more  from  the  ideal 
which  he  cherished  on  their  behalf,  he  began  to 
remonstrate  and  entreat  in  the  manner  of  Matt. 
11,  and  to  speak  of  them  to  his  disciples  after  the 
fashion  of  Matt.  13:10-17.  John  tells  us  how 
from  this  viewpoint  he  declared  to  them — "You 
refuse  to  come  to  me  to  have  Life,"  and  asked  re- 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS     77 

provingly  and,  at  the  same  time,  beseechingly — 
"How  can  you  believe  in  me  when  you  receive 
honor  from  one  another,  and  do  not  desire  the 
honor  which  comes  from  the  only  God?"  (5 :40,  44.) 
The  faith  of  the  Roman  centurion  and  the  per- 
sistent believing  pressure  of  the  Syro-Phoenician 
woman  cheered  and  enlightened  him ;  and  before 
the  end  he  saw  that  many  will  come  from  East 
and  West  and  take  their  places  beside  Abraham, 
Isaac  and  Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of  Heaven. 
(Matt.  8:5-13.)  So  when  about  the  end  "some 
Greeks"  sent  word  to  him  through  Philip  of 
Bethsaida  that  they  wished  an  interview  with  him, 
Jesus,  forgetting  for  the  moment  his  deep  and 
abiding  sorrow,  exulted  thus — "The  time  has 
come  for  the  Son  of  Man  to  be  exalted.  .  .  ." 
His  sorrow  reasserted  itself  again  till  it  wrung 
from  him  a  cry  and  prayer  of  distress,  but  he  was 
able  to  dismiss  it  once  more  and  further  exult — 
"Now  this  world  is  on  its  trial.  Now  the  spirit 
that  is  ruling  this  world  shall  be  driven  out ;  and 
I,  when  I  am  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  shall  draw 
all  men  to  myself."  In  the  Upper  Room,  too, 
he  was  largely  victorious  over  that  depression  of 
spirits  which  was  so  soon  to  become  overwhelm- 
ing, and  could  exhort  his  disciples  to  believe  in 
him  as  confidently  as  they  believed  in  God,  and 
assure  them  that  he  was  the  Truth  and  the  Life 
and  the  One  Way*  to  the  Father — He  was  the  Vine 
and  they  the  branches,  while  his  Father  was  the 
Vinegrower!  What  a  significant  word  in  rela- 


78  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

tion  to  himself  as  well  as  in  relation  to  them! 
What  a  holy  calm  was  his,  too,  while  he  breathed 
forth  there  his  high-priestly  prayer,  saying 
again  and  again  "Father,"  and  just  once  "Holy 
Father  1"  But  in  this  also,  though  sinless  he  was 
like  his  sinful  brothers — He  could  not  per- 
manently make  the  far  off  good,  which  greeted 
his  eyes  so  comfortingly  at  times,  fill  the  place 
of  the  other  immediate  triumph  upon  which  his 
desires  had  fixed  themselves,  and  which  only  the 
bad  hands  of  his  own  nation  had  thrust  beyond 
his  reach.  He  was  not  only  capable  of  heart- 
breaking disappointment — he  actually  suffered  it. 
One  thing,  however,  never  failed  him — the  con- 
sciousness of  his  Father's  presence  and  approval, 
and  of  his  personal  union  with  him.  In  all  his 
perplexities  and  in  every  distress  of  his  he  was 
sure  that  his  life  was  bound  up  in  the  life  of  God. 
"I  always  do  what  pleases  Him,"  he  said.  My 
Father  is  the  Vinegrower  doing  what  he  will  with 
me,  his  Vine.  Looking  up  at  the  graveside  of 
Lazarus  he  called  out  to  that  Father  this  confident 
word — "Thou  hearest  me  always."  Turning  once 
to  look  his  critics  full  in  the  face  he  said,  "The 
Father  and  I  are  one,"  and  again,  "In  truth  I  tell 
you,  before  Abraham  existed  I  was."  It  was  in 
conformity  with  this  last  word  that  Jesus  prayed 
in  the  Upper  Room — "And  now  do  Thou  honor 
me,  Father,  at  thy  own  side  with  the  honor  which 
I  had  at  thy  side  before  the  world  began. 
For  thou  didst  love  me  before  the  beginning  of 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS     79 

the  world."  (Jno.  17:5,  24.)  All  three  synop- 
tics agree  that  he  testified  on  oath  during  his 
trial  before  the  Sanhedrin  that  he  was  the  Son 
of  God.  Was  this  the  expression  of  a  self-per- 
ception or  of  a  self- judgment?  Did  he  reach  the 
place  where  at  last  he  knew  God  and  himself 
directly  as  Father  and  Son,  or  was  his  affirmation 
a  logical  conclusion  from  unstated  premises,  a 
self- j  udgment  ? 

However  this  may  have  been,  his  consciousness 
was  personal  and  individual,  and  it  was  that  of 
a  man.  In  spite  of  that  union  with  his  Father 
which  he  was  able  to  assert  so  confidently  and 
strikingly,  his  desires  sometimes  conflicted  with 
his  Father's  purposes  so  painfully  that  his  pray- 
ers were  strong  cryings  mingled  with  tears,  and 
his  will  acquiesced  only  when  he  came  to  see  his 
Father's  way  for  him  too  clearly  to  resist  any 
longer.  His  wishes,  like  ours,  clouded  his  vision, 
and  sometimes,  like  ourselves,  and  notably  at  the 
end,  his  wish  that  things  could  have  been  ordered 
otherwise  than  they  were,  forced  him  to  question 
his  Father's  will  again  and  again.  The  Son  of 
God  was  the  Son  of  Man  and  he  was  wondrously 
and  gloriously  human. 

The  only  way  a  true  sane  man  can  be  known 
is  through  his  consciousness  as  that  consciousness 
reveals  itself,  with  or  without  purpose,  in  his  words 
and  acts.  Jesus  was  such  a  man.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  guess  what  conclusions  the  early  church 
theologians  would  have  reached,  had  they  studied 


80  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

their  Lord  from  this  scientific  standpoint,  instead 
of  mixing  their  philosophy  and  hermeneutics  for 
the  production  of  dogmas  as  they  did.  They 
knew  how  to  anathematize  and  even  slaughter 
each  other  in  their  pious  rage  over  homoousion 
and  homoioiwion,  as  these  Greek  words  stood  re- 
lated to  the  person  of  Jesus,  and  over  the  ques- 
tion whether  he  possessed  one  or  two  natures, 
and  whether  there  were  in  him  two  wills,  one 
human  and  the  other  divine.  The  party  which 
could  in  the  end  muster  the  biggest  fighting  force 
was  orthodox,  to  be  sure!  For  was  not  Jesus 
Christ  himself  a  great  warrior  who  rode  upon  a 
white  horse,  with  his  name  "King  of  Kings  and 
Lord  of  Lords"  written  upon  his  robe  and  his 
thigh?  And  did  he  not  "judge  and  make  war"? 
They  merely  failed  to  observe  that  the  one  sharp 
sword  he  wielded  "came  out  of  the  mouth  of  him 
who  sat  upon  the  horse !" 

Suppose,  however,  that  they  had  looked  into 
the  consciousness  of  Jesus  for  reliable  informa- 
tion on  these  points,  what  would  they  have  found? 
If  they  had  humbly  consulted  the  records  of  his 
life  which  they  possessed,  as  we  possess  them  now, 
asking,  as  they  did  so,  what  in  act  and  word  and 
disposition  of  his,  calculated  to  throw  light  on 
these  questions,  lay  embalmed  in  these  writings, 
what  conclusions  would  they  have  reached? 

Reading  Paul's  letter  to  the  Romans  they  would 
have  found  this  word:  "According  to  the  inward 
man  I  delight  in  the  law  of  God ;  but  I  see  a  dif- 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS     81 

ferent  law  in  my  members,  warring  against  the 
law  of  my  mind  and  bringing  me  into  captivity." 
They  might  well  have  been  tempted  by  a  word  like 
this  to  the  conclusion  that  in  sinful  men  there  are 
two  natures  and  two  wills.  And  this  classical 
passage  does  not  stand  alone.  There  is  a  similar 
one  in  his  letter  to  the  Galatians — 

"For  the  flesh  eagerly  opposes  the  Spirit,  and 
the  Spirit  the  flesh ;  for  these  are  hostile  to  each 
other."  And  in  all  likelihood  the  word  "Spirit" 
here  stands  for  the  marshaled  and  fighting  forces 
of  good  in  each  sinful  man,  while  the  word  "flesh" 
represents  the  forces  of  evil  resident  in  each.  It 
is,  on  the  other  hand,  not  an  unusual  thing  at 
all  for  a  man  to  call  upon  the  forces  of  good 
resident  in  himself  to  come  to  his  aid  so  that  he 
may  act  his  part  worthily.  This  fact  also  seems 
to  point  to  something  like  a  duality  of  natures  in 
men — the  higher  and  the  lower,  the  better  and 
the  worse.  Such  is  the  consciousness  of  sinful 
men. 

Now  what  of  the  consciousness  of  him  concern- 
ing whom  the  best  informed  testimony  affiirms 
that  "he  never  sinned" — that  "he  has  in  every 
way  been  tempted,  exactly  as  we  have  been,  but 
without  sinning?"  Did  he  ever  speak  of  himself 
as  the  possessor  of  two  natures  or  two  wills? 
Did  he  in  any  strait  or  any  distress  call  upon 
his  higher,  his  divine  nature  and  will,  to  assume 
full  control,  and  instruct  or  guide  him  up  out  of 
the  ignorance  or  weakness  of  his  human  nature? 


82  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

The  answer  is  easy.  There  cannot  be  found  any- 
where even  one  poor  hint  that  he  ever  did.  The 
distinction  which  he  saw  so  clearly  was  not  that 
between  a  divine  nature  and  will  and  a  human 
nature  and  will  in  himself,  but  that  between  him- 
self in  his  entirety  and  his  Father.  To  that 
Father  and  never  to  his  own  divinity  he  continu- 
ally rendered  his  worship  and  service.  It  is  to 
him  we  owe  that  teaching  concerning  the  Holy 
Spirit  upon  which  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has 
been  erected.  When  at  the  time  of  his  baptism 
Jesus  came  up  from  the  water  praying,  we  are 
told  that  "the  heavens  opened,  and  he  saw  the 
Spirit  of  God  descending,  like  a  dove,  and  alight- 
ing upon  him."  Yet  we  have  no  hint  that  he  ever 
prayed  to  the  Holy  Spirit  any  more  than  that  he 
prayed  to  himself.  The  Father  was  his  sole  ob- 
ject of  adoration,  and  to  him  alone  he  fled  from 
his  human  ignorance,  weakness  and  awful  dis- 
tresses. Nor  did  he  ever  instruct  his  disciples  to 
pray  to  any  other  but  this  same  Father  in  heaven. 
It  may  be  well  for  me  to  do  no  more  here  than 
simply  point  out  these  facts.  It  cannot,  how- 
ever, prove  otherwise  than  helpful  for  us  to  main- 
tain the  viewpoint  from  which  we  can  distinguish 
clearly  between  the  doctrines  which  have  arisen 
directly  out  of  the  consciousness  of  Jesus,  and 
the  ones  which  have  sprung  from  those  of  sinful 
men  like  ourselves.  Praying  in  the  name,  or  as 
the  agents,  representatives  and  brothers  of  Jesus, 
is  a  thing  clearly  enjoined  by  himself,  but  out  of 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS     83 

his  consciousness  there  never  flowed  to  any  man 
the  command  to  pray  either  to  himself  or  the 
Holy  Spirit.  He  simply  taught  his  disciples  to 
call  upon  and  adore  "My  Father  and  your 
Father,  and  my  God  and  your  God."  (Jno. 
20:17.) 

From  all  this  it  can  be  easily  seen  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  can  never  be  truly  taught 
till  full  account  has  been  taken  of  the  fact  that 
a  human  consciousness  is  bound  up  with  the  divine 
consciousness  in  the  working  out  of  God's  plan 
of  redemption,  the  vicegerent  of  the  Father  in  the 
realization  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  being  the  man 
Christ  Jesus — the  divine  Logos,  the  Son  of  God, 
who  became  this  man.  He  who  gives  final  form  to 
this  doctrine  must  do  all  his  thinking  in  full 
view  of  the  life  history  of  God,  which  is  indis- 
solubly  bound  up  with  the  life  history  of  the 
Son  of  God,  who  is  now  known  to  us  as  the  man 
Jesus  Christ.  This  history  must  be  written  in 
four  periods,  the  first  dealing  with  conditions  as 
they  existed  prior  to  the  Incarnation,  the  second 
with  conditions  as  they  obtained  during  the  life 
of  Jesus  in  the  flesh,  the  third  with  conditions 
as  they  have  existed  since  his  ascension  to  glory, 
and  will  exist  until  he  surrenders  the  completed 
kingdom  to  his  God  and  Father,  and  the  fourth 
with  those  higher  conditions  which  must  prevail 
from  that  moment  onward. 

And  what  of  the  human  consciousness  of  Jesus, 
when,  the  kingdom  completed  at  last,  he  "surren- 


84  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

ders  it  to  his  God  and  Father,  and  places  himself 
under  God  who  placed  all  things  under  him,  that 
God  may  be  all  in  all?"  Will  that  human  con- 
sciousness then  disappear  through  absorption  in 
the  divine?  That  condition  would  be  Nirvana. 
But  it  must  either  do  that  or  persist  forever. 
Our  hearts  surely  incline  us  to  the  latter  alterna- 
tive, but  is  there  any  man  who  can  speak  here 
with  final  authority? 


VI 

JESUS  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 

Waiving  entirely  all  direct  discussion  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  I  may  introduce  this  sub- 
ject with  a  general  word  touching  the  offices  as- 
signed by  the  New  Testament  writers  to  "the 
Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit,"  or,  as  Paul 
names  them  together,  "the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
.  .  .  God  and  ...  the  Holy  Spirit." 
(Matt.  28:19;  2nd  Cor.  13:14.) 

The  Father  is  God  universally  transcendent  and 
universally  governing  in  righteousness  and  love, 
that  is,  in  the  exercise  constantly  of  due  con- 
sideration for  the  interests  of  all  his  creatures 
and  all  his  worlds.  The  Son  is  God  confining 
himself  to  the  limits  of  a  human  personality,  in- 
cluding for  a  time  its  physical  frailties,  its  igno- 
rance, and  even  its  extreme  temptableness,  and 
working  out  under  all  these  disabilities  a  career 
so  beneficent  and  praiseworthy  that  it  must  at 
length  fill  the  whole  universe  with  adoring  wonder 
and  gratitude.  And  the  Holy  Spirit  is  God  uni- 
versally immanent,  pervading  and  interpenetrat- 
ing all  things  and  all  persons,  and  carrying  for- 
ward everywhere  in  all  its  details  an  infinite  divine 
plan  for  the  bringing  into  existence  and  the  per- 

85 


86  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

fecting  of  a  vast  variety  of  things  and  beings, 
including  our  human  race  itself.  The  Son  is 
brought  before  us  not  only  as  "the  man  Christ 
Jesus,"  but  also  as  the  archetypal  man,  "the 
First-born  and  Head  or  Lord  of  all  Creation" 
(Col.  1:15;  Rev.  3:14);  and  the  Holy  Spirit 
may  in  the  name  of  correct  scientific  philosophy, 
as  well  as  of  sound  New  Testament  exegesis,  be 
identified  as  the  one  basal,  organizing  and  per- 
fecting Life  of  all  that  is,  and  author  of  that 
infinite  variety  in  unity  which  exhibits  itself  on 
every  hand — the  Son  the  Norm  and  the  Holy 
Spirit  the  Operator  in  one  evolutionary  process 
of  illimitable  scope  (Jno.  1:  1-5). 

If  the  First-born  of  all  creation  was  the  Ar- 
chetypal Man  and  he  stood  as  the  norm  for  the 
whole  process,  then  clearly  the  goal  of  all  must 
find  itself  in  a  race  resplendent  with  the  various 
glories  of  the  Archetypal  Man  himself.  But  the 
race  found  itself  allied  to  the  brute  and  so  poorly 
seized  of  its  high  destiny,  that  it  required  some 
one  who  could  both  point  out  the  goal  and  lead 
in  the  way  to  it.  Who  could  possibly  do  this  but 
this  same  Archetypal  Man?  And  how  could  he 
do  it  excepting  through  a  full  entrance  into  the 
life  of  the  race,  as  he  would  experience  it,  if  he 
should  be  born  and  grow  up  and  act  and  suffer, 
in  the  flesh,  as  a  genuine  member  of  it?  Such 
seems  to  be  the  philosophy  underlying  the  New 
Testament  story  of  the  incarnation.  But  here 
also  the  Norm  calls  for  the  Operator,  and  the  Son 


JESUS  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT      &t 

can  never  be  separated  from  the  Holy  Spirit. 
These  writers  perceived  this  clearly. 

All  through  the  story  of  the  life  of  Jesus  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  to  be  seen  as  the  power  upon 
and  behind  the  Son,  just  as  distinctly  as  the 
"Father  in  Heaven"  is  to  be  seen  as  the  directing 
and  controlling  authority  above  Him.  In  pre- 
senting this  fact  I  shall  begin  with  the  accounts 
of  the  resurrection  and,  moving  backwards,  con- 
clude with  that  of  the  Virgin  Birth. 

In  dealing  with  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  a 
word  of  his  own  touching  it  may  be  first  cited, 
and  perhaps  that  given  in  John  10:18  is  the  best 
for  my  purpose — "I  have  authority  to  lay  down 
my  life,  and  I  have  authority  to  receive  it  again. 
This  is  the  command  which  I  received  from  my 
Father."  He  always  recognized  the  fact  that 
the  authority  he  wielded  was  delegated  authority. 
He  constantly  described  himself  as  having  been 
sent  under  the  strictest  orders,  and  took  pains 
also  to  make  it  clear  that  his  instructions  did  not 
reach  him  all  at  once  at  the  beginning  of  his 
career,  but  gradually  as  his  circumstances  de- 
manded them.  When  he  uttered  these  words  his 
Father's  "command"  had  reached  him  to  move 
straight  on  in  his  faithfulness  as  the  Son  til] 
he  had  laid  down  his  life  and  received  it  again. 
To  contemplate  the  first  step  was  to  pass  at 
length  through  his  Gethsemane  agony,  but  the 
thought  of  the  second  was  a  portion  of  "the  joy 
that  lay  before  him."  (Heb.  12:2.)  It  was  on 


88  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

the  "authority"  of  his  Father's  "command"  that 
he  looked  towards  both.  But  he  was  not  called 
upon  either  to  take  his  own  life  or  to  restore  it 
to  himself  after  he  had,  "by  the  hands  of  lawless 
men,  been  nailed  to  a  cross  and  put  to  death." 
The  record  is  that  "God  released  him  from  the 
pangs  of  death  and  raised  him  to  life."  (Acts 
2:  23,  24.)  And  a  further  word  of  Peter  is — 
"The  very  Guide  of  Life  you  put  to  death !  But 
God  raised  him  from  the  dead."  (Acts  3:  14, 
15.)  In  writing  to  the  Romans,  Paul  made  two 
statements  on  this  point  which  I  may  note  here. 
"Christ  was  raised  from  the  dead  by  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  Father's  power"  (Chap.  6:  4),  is  the 
first;  and  the  second  (Chap  8:  11)  affirms:  If 
the  spirit  of  him  who  raised  Jesus  from  the  dead 
lives  within  you,  he  who  raised  Jesus  from  the 
dead  will  give  life  even  to  your  mortal  bodies, 
through  his  Spirit  living  within  you."  In  the 
resurrection,  therefore,  as  in  all  else  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  the  divine  Operator.  So  even  if  1st 
Peter  3:15  should  not  be  translated  "quickened 
by  the  Spirit,"  the  thing  is  true  nevertheless. 
The  Father's  power  to  raise  from  the  dead  and 
give  life  to  mortal  human  bodies  is  manifested,  or 
put  forth,  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

In  calling  attention  to  the  next  point  I  may 
first  remark  that  Peter  and  Paul  both  wrote  at 
least  once  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  Spirit  of 
Jesus  Christ— 1st  Peter  1:11;  Phil.  1 :19— just 
as  Paul  in  1st  Thessalonians  4:8  writes  of  "God 


JESUS  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT      89 

(the  Father)  who  gives  you  his  Holy  Spirit." 
The  point  itself  is  advanced  in  these  words  of 
Heb.  9:14 — "Christ,  who  through  his  eternal 
Spirit  offered  himself  up  to  God  as  a  victim  with- 
out blemish."  While  here  a  man  in  the  flesh 
Jesus  made  the  Holy  Spirit  his  by  receiving  him 
to  the  full  measure  of  his  capacity,  so  that 
through  his  power  he  might  do  and  endure  to 
the  utmost  the  things  required  by  the  position 
which  he  had  assumed.  And  the  thing  here  as- 
serted is  that  it  was  through  a  strength  of  cour- 
age and  devotion  which  the  Holy  Spirit  wrought 
in  him  that  he  was  able  to  pass  safely  through 
his  Gethsemane  test  and  yield  himself  up  un- 
flinchingly, and  in  the  very  "beauties  of  holi- 
ness" as  an  offering  to  God  his  Father,  in  the 
sufferings  and  death  which  followed. 

One  of  the  latest  teachings  of  Jesus  himself  was 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  would  lead  his  disciples, 
after  his  removal  from  them,  in  the  ways  of  all 
necessary  spiritual  knowledge,  and  that  he  would 
do  this  partly  by  quickening  their  memories,  and 
partly  by  invigorating  their  intellectual  powers 
(Jno.  15:  26);  that  they  would  in  this  way  be 
fitted  to  offer  effective  testimony  concerning  him 
as  the  Savior  of  men  (Jno.  15:27)  ;  and  that  he 
would  so  open  up  the  Truth  to  their  minds  as  to 
make  clear  to  them  each  step  they  would  be  re- 
quired to  take  as  they  advanced  with  the  task 
which  it  was  theirs  to  undertake  in  his  name. 
(Jno.  16:  13.)  Thus  Jesus  made  it  plain  that 


90  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

he  most  definitely  relied  upon  the  operations  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  for  both  the  progress  of  his  church 
and  the  conversion  of  the  world. 

He  knew  how  it  would  be  in  the  case  of  the 
small  company  of  followers  he  was  to  leave  behind 
him,  because  he  knew  how  it  had  been  with  himself. 
The  servant  was  to  be  as  his  Master.  When  he 
stood  up  in  his  home  synagogue  at  Nazareth  he 
read  from  Isaiah — "The  spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon 
me,  etc."  and  sat  down  to  open  his  address  with 
the  words,  "This  very  day  this  passage  has  been 
fulfilled  in  your  hearing."  (Luke  4:  18-21.) 
And  all  "the  beautiful  words  that  fell  from  his 
lips"  at  other  times  were  uttered  under  the  same 
mighty  inspiration. 

When  he  passed  from  his  baptism  to  the  long 
season  of  spiritual  struggle  in  the  wilderness,  he 
went  under  the  guidance  of  the  spirit.  (Matt.  4: 
1 ;  Luke  4:1.)  Each  of  the  four  accounts  of  his 
baptism  by  John  gives  a  most  careful  statement 
concerning  the  divine  baptism  which  stood  most 
intimately  associated  with  it.  "Just  as  He  was 
coming  up  from  the  water,  the  heavens  opened,  and 
he  saw  the  Spirit  of  God  descending  like  a  dove 
and  alighting  upon  him,  and  from  the  heavens 
there  came  a  voice  which  said:  'This  is  my  Son, 
the  Beloved,  in  whom  I  delight!'  "  (Matt.  3:  16, 
17.)  Mark  says,  not  that  he  saw  the  heavens 
opened,  but  that  "he  saw  the  heavens  rent  apart," 
as  by  a  mighty  force  suddenly  applied.  Luke 
tells  us  that  it  was  "when  Jesus  had  been  bap- 


JESUS  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT      91 

tized  and  was  still  praying"  that  "the  heavens 
opened,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  descended,  in  a  visible 
form,  like  a  dove,  upon  him."  This  implies  that 
the  dove-like  form  was  seen  by  others  besides  Jesus 
himself.  John  furnishes  us  with  the  testimony 
of  John  Baptist  on  this  point — "I  have  seen  the 
Spirit  descending  out  of  the  heavens,  and  it  re- 
mained upon  him.  I  myself  did  not  know  him, 
but  he  who  sent  me  to  baptize  with  water,  he  said 
to  me :  'He  upon  whom  you  see  the  Spirit  descend- 
ing and  remaining  upon  him — he  it  is  who  baptizes 
with  the  Holy  Spirit.'  "  (John  1 :32,  33.) 

According  to  this  word  his  baptism  with  the 
Holy  Spirit  was  John's  great  means  of  identify- 
ing him  as  the  one  person  in  whose  interests 
chiefly  he  had  himself  been  commissioned.  Accord- 
ing to  it  also  Jesus  was  revealed  to  John  Baptist 
as  the  receiver  of  the  Spirit  for  others  as  well 
as  for  himself;  and  this  is  certainly  true  to  the 
very  nature  of  his  mission. 

The  purpose  and  value  of  this  baptism  are  set 
forth  in  the  words  of  Peter's  address  before  the 
company  gathered  at  the  home  of  Cornelius  in 
Cagsarea :  "The  story,  I  mean,  of  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth, and  how  God  consecrated  him  his  Christ  by 
enduing  him  with  the  Holy  Spirit  and  with 
power;  and  how  he  went  about  doing  good  and 
curing  all  who  were  under  the  power  of  the  Devil, 
because  God  was  with  him."  (Acts  10:  38.) 

This  language  sets  Jesus  before  the  mind  as 
owing  his  career  most  definitely  to  his  consecration 


92  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

and  enduement  by  God.  It  was  "because  God 
was  with  him"  that  "he  went  about  doing  good 
and  curing  all  who  were  under  the  power  of  the 
Devil."  The  consecration  and  enduement  were 
essential  things.  Before  receiving  them  he  was 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  superior  in  goodness  and 
spiritual  insight  to  his  neighbors,  no  doubt,  but 
simply  taking  his  share  in  his  home  life,  the  work 
of  the  carpenter's  shop,  and  the  life  of  the  town 
and  its  synagogue.  Along  some  practical  lines 
he  may  have  seemed  to  his  neighbors,  and  his  own 
family  even,  to  be  considerably  deficient.  He 
lacked  in  what  was  currently  regarded  as  bargain- 
ing ability  we  may  be  sure.  He  had  no  cunning 
or  craftiness,  and  did  not  know  how  to  find 
the  blind  side  of  anyone,  excepting  for  the  pur- 
pose of  becoming  eyes  to  him.  He  was  probably 
looked  upon  as  too  good-hearted  by  half,  too  un- 
ambitious, over  conscientious  and  altogether  un- 
likely ever  to  go  far  in  any  practical  direction. 

Before  his  consecration  and  enduement  he  was 
just  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  religious,  thoughtful, 
generous,  but  not  strikingly  strong  or  command- 
ingly  eminent  even  in  the  religious  life  of  the  little 
town  itself.  He  had  not  yet  found  his  place  and 
his  work.  He  was  waiting  in  the  half  conscious 
fashion  of  the  great,  whose  proper  tasks  have  not 
yet  reached  them.  Then  the  breezes  bore  him 
tidings  of  what  an  awakening  of  public  interest 
was  taking  place  under  the  preaching  of  his 
cousin  John.  "The  kingdom  of  God"  was  the 


JESUS  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT      95 

very  word  to  quicken  his  pulses.  So  was  the  other 
word  "Repent,"  for  his  own  heart  had  already 
told  him  that  this  kingdom  must  belong  to  no 
other  than  a  holy  nation.  What  would  his  part 
be  in  this  great  and  growing  movement?  This 
question  grew  upon  him  until  at  last  it  took  him 
to  the  scene  of  John's  labors  and  into  John's 
presence.  He  knew  his  place  and  his  work  at  last. 
He  accepted  his  mission  in  his  heart.  He  would 
publicly  avow  it.  But  first  John  must  baptize 
him.  John  felt  unworthy.  But  his  scruples 
were  overborne  and  the  waters  of  the  Jordan 
touched  the  Holy  One  and  were  themselves  made 
holy  for  the  thought  of  all  the  succeeding  Chris- 
tian generations.  Jesus  knew  the  tremendousness 
of  this  crisis.  He  went  to  John  praying,  came 
from  his  hands  praying,  and,  praying  still,  re- 
ceived his  divine  baptism.  Then  at  once  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  found  himself  what  he  has  been  ever 
since — the  anointed  and  consecrated  One,  God's 
Christ,  and  endued  with  a  power  which  was  to 
prove  adequate  to  the  various  features  of  the 
whole  task  which  lay  before  him.  And  it  was 
the  reception  of  the  Holy  Spirit  into  a  completely 
consecrated  nature  which  made  all  the  difference. 
Thus  far  everything  was  clear  to  the  primitive 
Christian  mind.  Another  question  remained, 
however.  What  was  there  peculiar  about  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  that  he  alone  was  entrusted  with  this 
mission  and  endued  with  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
this  supreme  way?  And  how  was  it  that  he  be- 


94  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

came  possessed  of  his  singular  fitness  to  be  made 
the  divine  instrument  in  the  case?  The  natural 
general  answer  was  the  one  which  has  been  given 
in  connection  with  the  same  sort  of  question  as  it 
has  been  asked  in  view  of  the  lives  of  great  men 
generally — it  must  have  been  a  matter  of  original 
endowment.  But  how  was  this  endowment 
secured?  The  question  of  parentage  came  in 
here.  Could  merely  human  parentage  ever  se- 
cure so  much  for  any  child?  The  thing  was  un- 
believable. What  then?  They  must  if  possible 
obtain  all  the  facts  of  the  case.  So  we  have  the 
stories  of  Matthew  and  Luke  which  can  be  set 
out  in  four  words — Parthenogenesis  through  di- 
vine interposition.  And  what  shall  we  do  with 
these  stories? 

Evolutionary  science  of  the  materialistic  type 
waves  them  aside  with  a  superior  air,  remark- 
ing as  it  does  so  that  among  the  higher  orders  of 
living  organisms  it  knows  no  such  things  as  vir- 
gin births,  and  no  such  things  as  divine  inter- 
positions among  the  advancing  forces  of  nature. 
These  are  statements  which  no  one  can  absolutely 
disprove.  But  one  can  accept  these  and  still 
retain  the  recollection  that  nothing  very  solid 
can  be  built  upon  human  ignorance.  One  may 
also  be  free  to  think,  if  he  cares  to,  that  what  we 
call  interpositions  are  perhaps  not  interpositions 
at  all.  They  are  not,  that  is  to  say,  entrances  of 
God  into  places  from  which  he  is  usually  absent, 
nor  results  of  an  activity  on  the  part  of  God 


JESUS  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT      95 

where  he  was  inactive  before.  The  divine  im- 
manence must  not  be  forgotten,  and  wherever  God 
exists  he  exists  as  both  thought  and  action.  Noth- 
ing which  ought  to  come  into  being  does  so  apart 
from  his  will,  and  the  more  conspicuously  neces- 
sary a  given  life  is  the  more  definitely  that  life 
can  be  traced  to  God  as  its  source.  Indeed  God 
is  the  source  of  all  life  and  so  of  all  lives.  And 
it  is  safe  to  assume,  as  I  have  done  in  one  of 
the  opening  paragraphs  of  this  chapter,  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  himself  may  be  identified  as  the  one 
basal,  organizing  and  perfecting  life  of  all  that 
is,  and  author  of  that  infinite  variety  in  unity 
which  exhibits  itself  on  every  hand ;  and  that  Na- 
ture with  the  capital  N  owes  all  she  is  to  him  as 
the  very  soul  of  her  soul.  He  made  her  and  he 
sustains  her. 

And  what  does  science  know  about  the  laws  of 
human  reproduction?  Do  a  male  and  female  ac- 
tually produce  a  new  being  like  themselves  ?  Or  is 
their  union  only  the  condition  of  that  production? 
It  is  certainly  quite  as  safe  to  take  the  latter 
position  as  the  former.  What  are  the  facts  ? 

Several  things  are  true  of  the  inception  of 
every  human  life.  First  of  all  the  event  does 
not  take  place  in  obedience  to  human  wishing  or 
willing.  The  most  earnest  desires  and  purposes 
are  often  met  by  nothing  but  disappointment. 
On  the  other  hand,  where  the  sexes,  even  in  the 
marriage  relation,  regard  each  other  only  as  com- 
panion instruments  for  sensual  gratification,  the 


96  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

inception  of  a  new  life  is  often  attained  as  a 
distinct  triumph  over  all  the  obstacles  which  have 
with  wicked  and  persistent  care  been  piled  in  the 
way.  In  the  second  place  the  event  occurs  with- 
out human  supervision,  and  altogether  apart  from 
even  the  consciousness  of  her  who  is  to  play  the 
part  of  mother  in  the  case.  The  more  closely 
one  looks  into  the  actual  physical  facts  the  more 
apparent  this  becomes.  Two  invisible  units  seem 
to  seek  each  other  in  a  space  which  to  them  is 
vast,  but  they  find  each  other.  An  almost  in- 
finitesimal embrace  take  place  in  darkness.  Then 
the  human  embryo  which  results,  fixes  itself  as  a 
parasite  upon  some  point,  more  or  less  suitable  of 
the  living  chamber  in  which  it  has  thus  begun  its 
career,  and,  after  undergoing  a  variety  of  changes 
in  form,  it  is  forced  to  take  its  place  in  the  air 
and  sunshine  of  this  planet,  as  the  most  immature 
and  helpless  of  all  sentient  creatures. 

During  all  this  period  it  was  not  nurtured 
through  the  purposing  or  planning  of  any  man 
or  woman,  and  the  period  itself  came  to  an  end 
through  no  wishing  or  willing  of  any  mortal 
whatever.  Birth  throes,  as  well  as  gestation,  rep- 
resent a  will  which  has  imposed  itself  upon  the 
whole  animal  world — a  will  which  is  as  vast  in  its 
scope  as  it  is  inescapable,  and  as  wise  in  its  hid- 
den operations  as  it  is  powerful.  It  is  true,  too, 
that,  as  a  rule,  the  birth-pangs  themselves  are 
used  to  awaken,  where  it  did  not  exist  before,  a 
love  strong  enough  to  supply  the  care  required 


JESUS  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT      97 

by  the  helplessness  of  the  babe.  The  full  breast 
yearns  for  the  pressure  of  the  infant  lips  and  the 
soft  touch  of  the  tiny  fingers ;  so  the  little  form  is 
caressed  and  held  close  to  the  heart,  and  before 
this  vision  latent  father  love  leaps  up  strong  to 
defend  and  to  maintain. 

Nothing,  then,  is  clearer  than  that  the  conscious 
vital  purpose  which  governs  the  propagation  of 
our  race  lies  elsewhere  than  in  the  visible  actors 
or  agents  themselves.  It  reveals  itself  at  every 
step  in  the  process.  The  immanent  God  is  here 
as  elsewhere  a  constant  and  consistent  doer,  sted- 
fastly  carrying  out  the  purposes  of  his  own  wis- 
dom and  love. 

Coming  now  to  the  question  before  us,  namely, 
the  conception  of  Jesus,  as  it  is  set  forth  by  Mat- 
thew and  Luke,  is  there  any  apparent  provision 
in  our  humanity  for  the  occurrence  of  such  an 
event?  My  answer  is  this.  The  personal  letter 
of  a  living  scientist,  which  now  lies  before  me, 
refers  to  Dr.  Edward  Wilson's  book  on  "The  Cell 
Development  and  Inheritance,"  and,  ini  view  of  the 
positions  of  that  great  authority,  makes  this 
statement:  "It  is  quite  safe  to  say  that  Par- 
thenogenesis is  by  no  means  uncommon  in  the 
lower  orders  and  it  remains  a  wonder  that 
it  is  not  still  more  common  in  all  ranges  of  life," 
when  polar  bodies  and  germ  cells  are  so  constantly 
found  in  the  presence  of  each  other  in  virgin 
wombs.  No  possibility,  therefore,  could  be  more 
distinct  than  this.  There  is  here  even  the  sug-. 


98  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

gestion  of  probability.  Can  this  probability  be 
strengthened  by  any  facts  or  considerations  which 
are  well  within  our  reach? 

Let  us  look  at  the  story  of  evolution  itself  as 
it  reveals  the  succession  of  living  organisms. 
This  story,  as  Henri  Bergsen  well  argues,  is  not 
that  of  a  chain  which  was  forged  link  by  link, 
but  rather  that  of  several  series  of  ascending 
steps  which  were  separated  from  each  other  by 
chasms  across  each  of  which  an  upward  leap  was 
successfully  made,  in  order  that  the  evolutionary 
progress  might  be  still  triumphantly  maintained. 
Not  to  name  any  other  such  leap,  it  is  still  safe, 
if  not  too  fashionable,  to  say  that  our  own  race, 
low  as  it  may  have  been  at  the  start,  was  reached 
in  this  way.  At  the  same  time  we  are  undoubtedly 
related  to  all  the  animals  below  us.  To  pass  up 
from  such  a  sinning  world  as  that  in  which  Jesus 
lived,  to  his  own  unsinning  life,  was  certainly 
another  leap,  and  one  demanded  by  the  con- 
science of  the  race  itself,  but  felt  to  be  impossible. 
When  we  look  upon  him  long  enough  we  see 
clearly  that  he  was  a  man  like  every  other  man, 
excepting  in  this  one  thing — he  did  no  sin.  But 
this  is  a  tremendous  difference.  How  did  it  come 
about?  The  New  Testament  answer  is  not  nega- 
tived by  scientific  facts. 

Identify  the  Holy  Spirit  with  Life;  make  Him 
the  creator  of  all  things  and  beings  in  the  order 
in  which  they  have  actually  appeared  and  are 
appearing ;  take  parthenogenesis  as  an  established 


JESUS  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT      99 

fact  in  nature,  and  confess  the  possibility  of  it 
in  every  race  of  beings;  and  the  virgin  birth  of 
Jesus  is  seen  to  be  at  least  as  scientifically  prob- 
able as  that  living  organisms  should  have  appeared 
in  a  world  of  so  called  non-living  matter,  al- 
together apart  from  any  direct  action  of  a  liv- 
ing being  either  finite  or  infinite — an  assumption 
which  the  scientific  materialist  entertains  and 
propounds  with  a  very  quick  faith.  And  placing 
the  emphasis  upon  the  word  "direct "  any  one 
may  perhaps  receive  this  latter  doctrine  calmly, 
because  in  that  case  the  axiom  touching  sufficient 
causes  is  not  necessarily  contravened.  The 
story  of  living  organisms  is  the  history  of  the 
upward  march  of  Life — the  word,  which,  I  an- 
ticipate, will  one  day  take  the  place  of  the  word 
Nature,  which  has  proved  so  elusive  and  decep- 
tive. 

Life  with  the  whole  great  task  of  Creation  be- 
fore Him,  including  the  intellectual,  the  moral 
and  the  wholly  god-like,  proceeded  with  His  task 
by  slow  and  steady  steps  for  the  most  part.  But 
here  and  there  He  shot  upward  with  a  stride  or 
leap.  When  at  length  he  came  to  living  organ- 
isms, he  built  the  virgin  birth  into  the  regular 
order  of  events,  and  made  provision  for  its  occur- 
rence everywhere,  that  it  might  be  employed  at 
any  stage  whatever,  opening  the  way  for  it  when 
he  came  to  our  race  just  as  he  had  done  before. 
In  view  of  all  this  is  it  unreasonable  to  say  that 
when  he  wished  a  race  with  well-nigh  illimitable 


100  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

intellectual  moral  and  spiritual  possibilities  he  re- 
sorted to  this  provision  of  his,  and  placed  in  the 
arms  of  an  ape-like  mother  a  child  who  had  no 
ape-like  father;  and  that  when  the  time  was  ripe 
for  placing  before  this  splendid  race  a  man  who 
would  never  display  an  evil  disposition  or  sin 
against  his  own  conscience,  he  did  this  by  putting 
into  the  arms  of  an  Israelitish  virgin  a  son  whose 
father  was  not  a  sinning  man? 

Say  that  man  is  related  to  the  whole  brute 
creation  on  the  mother's  side,  and  Jesus  is  a 
brother  on  the  mother's  side  to  all  other  men ;  and 
the  whole  story  is  told.1  You  have  then  given 
creation  its  place  as  a  part  of  God's  long  toil 
towards  self-realization,  without  making  him  it, 
or  it  him,  in  whole  or  in  part,  any  more  than  the 
human  mother  is  her  own  son,  or  the  human  son  his 
own  mother.  You  have  given  man  his  proper  place 
at  the  top  of  the  ascending  animal  series,  and 
have  shown  clearly  that  he  was  endowed  with  con- 
science and  his  power  of  knowing  God,  with  a  view 
to  having  these  developed  to  the  fullest  possible 
extent,  and  made  absolutely  triumphant  in  their 

iYet  not  the  whole  perhaps.  What  if  the  Virgin  Birth 
itself  should  prove  the  key  to  unlock  the  mystery  in  which 
the  origin  of  species  is  still  so  closely  shut  up !  Evolu- 
tion rightly  understood  applies  only  to  the  development  of 
each  species  after  its  appearance.  Its  work  is  that  of 
strengthening  characteristics  and  producing  varieties. 
Were  the  various  species  themselves  brought  forth  one  af- 
ter another  by  means  of  parthenogenesis?  A  case  by  no 
means  weak  might  be  made  out  for  this  view. 


JESUS  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT     101 

struggle  with  darkness  and  wrong.  You  have 
made  it  plain,  also,  that  Jesus  was  projected  with 
his  unsinning  life  into  the  midst  of  the  sinning, 
yet  nobly  striving  race  of  men,  as,  on  the  one 
hand,  a  token  to  them  that  their  ideal  of  a  human 
life  in  every  way  true  to  its  place  and  time,  was 
far  from  being  an  empty  dream,  and  as,  on  the 
other,  a  guide  and  an  inspiration  for  every  seeker 
after  God's  sufficient  help  and  saving  smile.  You 
have  shown,  too,  that  the  highest  office  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  here  upon  the  earth  is  that  of  unit- 
ing men  to  Jesus  Christ  in  a  life  of  supreme  de- 
votion to  God  and  each  other.  And,  finally,  you 
have  come  to  the  place  where  it  is  seen  that  Jesus 
in  the  flesh  is  the  Holy  Spirit's  norm  in  both  his 
creating  and  recreating  work,  while  the  glorified 
or  Archetypal  Man,  the  Son  of  God  himself,  is 
his  norm  in  his  work  where  men  come  to  know  in 
full,  as  they  have  been  fully  known. 

The  first  human  child  brought  with  it  but  the 
beginnings  of  all  that  was  to  be  realized  through 
its  advent.  Millennium  has  had  to  follow  millen- 
nium in  connection  with  the  full  realization  of  the 
rich  and  various  possibilities  which!  it  carried  with 
it  when  it  came.  So  Jesus  himself  was  but  the 
beginning  of  the  sinless  order  among  men.  He 
vividly  realized  this  himself,  renounced  the  idea 
of  his  completeness  in  the  goodness  of  God,  con- 
fessed his  ignorance  and  his  limitations,  and  held 
before  his  disciples  the  prospect  of  larger  things 
to  follow  his  removal  from  the  earth.  His  com- 


102  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

pleteness  was  that  of  disposition  and  purpose  as 
these  could  be  displayed  within  the  limitations  of 
his  knowledge,  on  the  one  hand,  and  his  social 
environment,  on  the  other. 

It  was  his,  moreover,  not  to  replace  the  sinning 
race  by  means  of  a  new  one,  physically,  as  well 
as  morally  and  spiritually,  descended  from  him- 
self. But  by  slowly  lifting  the  sinning  race  itself, 
through  intellectual  enlightenment,  the  invigor- 
ation  of  the  conscience  and  the  clarifying  of  the 
spiritual  vision,  he  was  to  lead  it  at  last  beyond 
every  degrading,  disabling  and  painful  limitation 
into  the  fullness  of  its  inheritance  in  God.  That 
is  to  say,  the  Holy  Spirit  as  Life  brought  Jesus 
upon  the  scene  as  his  final  instrument  in  the  reali- 
zation of  that  completely  holy  end,  which  alone 
could  make  the  plan  of  creation  itself  worthy 
and  glorious. 


VII 

THE  SINLESSNESS  OF  JESUS 

In  dealing  with  this  theme  one  has  first  to  say 
who  Jesus  was  and  is,  then  ask  what  it  would  be 
for  such  a  person  to  be  sinless,  and,  finally,  to 
determine,  if  he  can,  whether  Jesus  was  really  sin- 
less or  not.  In  giving  our  answer  to  the  first 
of  these  questions  we  may  state  an  affirmation 
which  comes  to  us  from  every  side — He  was  a  man. 
The  New  Testament  writers  lead  the  way  here, 
telling  us  of  his  birth  and  infancy,  his  boyhood, 
his  consecration  to  God,  his  temptations  and  dis- 
tresses, his  prayers  to  his  divine  Father,  his  human 
agony  in  Gethsemane  and  on  the  cross,  and  of  his 
death  and  burial.  While  they  most  positively  af- 
firmed his  resurrection  from  the  dead  and  his  as- 
cension to  glory,  they  still  spoke  of  him  as 
"Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  man  ..."  "and  how 
God  consecrated  him  his  Christ  by  enduing  him 
with  the  Holy  Spirit  and  with  power."  (Acts  2 : 
23;  10:  38.)  When  Paul  asserted  the  unity  of 
God  and  the  existence  of  one  mediator  between 
God  and  men,  he  declared  that  this  mediator  was 
"the  man  Christ  Jesus."  (1  Tim.  2:  25.)  It  is 
in  these  same  New  Testament  writers,  of  course, 
that  we  find  the  doctrine  of  both  his  pre-existence 
103 


104  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

and  persistence  as  the  Son  of  God.  But  con- 
stantly and  consistently  they  represent  him  as 
having  become  a  man,  and  seem  never  to  have  been 
troubled  by  any  feelings  of  perplexity  in  view  of 
his  complete  humanness.  They  believed  he  had  no 
independent  authority,  but  received  continuous 
authorization  from  his  Father.  He  could  not 
even  perform  his  first  miracle  without  a  clear  in- 
timation that  it  would  be  well-timed.  They 
taught  also  that  his  power  to  do  deeds  that  were 
beyond  the  ability  of  others  did  not  spring  from 
within,  but  came  upon  him  from  without;  and 
that  he  himself  anticipated  that  these  deeds  would 
be  exceeded  by  those  of  his  followers.  They  even 
saw  in  his  life  the  proof  that  apart  from  heavenly 
aid,  incessantly  given  in  answer  to  prayers  that 
were  sometimes  associated  "with  earnest  crying 
and  with  tears,"  he  would  have  failed  both  in  his 
mission  and  his  personal  career.  And  when  his 
earthly  task  was  ended  and  he  was  about  to  pass 
from  their  sight  to  the  Father,  they  understood 
him  to  say  that  the  enlarged  authority  then  given 
him  was  strictly  delegated  authority,  and  would 
continue  only  until  the  Father  had  through  his 
instrumentality,  along  with  the  mightier  instru- 
mentality of  the  Holy  Spirit,  secured  the  complete 
triumph  of  the  principles  of  love  and  truth  which 
he  had  been  sent  to  exemplify  and  enforce.  In 
brief,  Jesus  was,  to  his  apostles,  a  man  while  he 
was  here  in  the  flesh,  and  still  a  man  after  his 
resurrection  and  entrance  upon  his  glorified  ca- 


THE  SINLESSNESS  OF  JESUS      105 

reer  in  the  invisible.  That  is  to  say,  he  was  God 
become  man  and  continuing  as  such. 

These  apostles  were  Jews,  not  Greeks.  They 
were,  therefore,  content  to  abide  without  ques- 
tioning in  what  they  regarded  as  their  world  of 
ascertained  facts.  They  rejoiced  in  the  essential 
greatness  of  their  Master  and  Savior.  Had  they 
philosophized  at  all,  they  would  have  said  that 
the  pre-existent  Son  of  God  did  not  in  becoming 
a  man  cease  to  exist.  Had  he  ceased  to  exist  he 
could  not  have  become  a  man  at  all.  He  had  not 
ceased  to  exist,  but  only  to  exist  as  God.  Hence, 
though  now  he  was  a  man,  he  was  divine  still — 
the  God-mem. 

What  they  did  say,  or  rather,  what  they  con- 
tinually assumed,  was  that  everything  that  he  had 
done  as  Creator,  Upholder,  and  Revealer,  prior  to 
his  incarnation,  had  now  to  stand  associated  with 
the  name  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  Christ  of  God ; 
since  it  could  be  credited  to  no  other  either  on 
earth  or  in  heaven.  An  individual's  record  at- 
taches to  himself  alone,  no  matter  what  the 
changes  which  may  take  place  in  him.  So  to 
them  he  was  "Jesus  Christ  yesterday  and  to- 
day— yes,  and  forever."  He  was  the  one  who 
came  down,  stayed  here  for  a  time  in  our  human- 
ity, and  then,  in  our  humanity  glorified,  went  up 
to  where  he  was  before.  In  his  own  person  they 
saw  him  lift  this  humanity  of  ours,  even  while  he 
was  here  in  the  flesh,  to  heights  only  imagined 
before.  And  all  he  did  he  did  as  a  man. 


106  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Accepting,  therefore,  all  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  affirm  about  the  pre-existence  and 
divinity  of  Jesus,  we  must  recognize  that  it  is 
as  a  man  that  we  are  to  consider  him  when  we  ask 
whether  he  was  sinless  or  not.  But  we  cannot 
intelligently  proceed  with  our  inquiry  until  we 
have  first  named  one  of  the  outstanding  facts  of 
our  humanity.  This  fact  is  ignorance.  To  en- 
ter upon  a  human  career  is  to  begin  as  a  babe, 
with  no  knowledge  at  all,  and  always  remain  a 
learner.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  New 
Testament  writers  present  Jesus  to  us  as  both  a 
babe  and  a  learner.  It  is  recorded  of  him  that 
he  grew  in  knowledge  in  his  boyhood.  He  did  not 
know  at  the  time  of  his  baptism  on  what  precise 
lines  he  was  to  conduct  his  career,  and  it  was  only 
as  he  moved  cautiously  forward  that  all  became 
clear.  During  two  years  or  more  of  his  public 
life  he  did  not  think  of  his  ministry  as  meant  for 
any  but  Jews.  When  on  his  one  vacation  outside 
the  territory  of  his  own  people,  he  declared  to  a 
pleading  Canaanitish  woman  that  he  had  no  mis- 
sion to  her  or  her  people.  There  and  later  he 
learned  a  new  lesson  regarding  his  own  work.  He 
confessed  his  ignorance  of  the  time  of  a  future 
event,  and  told  his  apostles,  even  after  his  res- 
urrection, that  the  Father  had  reserved  "times 
and  hours  .  .  .  for  his  own  decision."  We 
have  no  hint  either  that  he  had  a  wider  geograph- 
ical or  literary  knowledge  than  the  men  of  his 
time.  He  had  no  reputation  whatever  for  learn- 


THE  SINLESSNESS  OF  JESUS      107 

ing.  What  gave  him  superiority  and  authority 
was  his  amazing  spiritual  insight.  He  read  the 
heart  of  God  and  the  hearts  of  men  as  no  other 
ever  did,  and  so  was  wiser  than  all  others  in  the 
essential  things  of  human  life. 

His  knowledge  and  originality,  even  in  the  field 
of  ethics,  can  easily  be  overestimated.  He  did 
not  originate  either  "the  first  and  great  com- 
mandment" or  "the  second."  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  God  with  all  thy  powers  and  thy  neighbor 
as  thyself  arrived  ages  before  his  coming.  He 
found  these  commandments  in  the  sacred  writings 
of  his  people,  and  codified  and  illuminated  them 
in  his  teaching.  He  was  ahead  of  his  times  on 
divorce,  on  oaths,  and  on  the  requital  of  injuries, 
but  he  never  even  hinted  at  the  great  moral  re- 
forms of  recent  years.  The  Father  had  not  made 
him  acquainted  with  the  "times  and  hours"  in 
which  the  great  principles  he  affirmed  would  work 
themselves  out  in  these  and  all  other  particulars. 
From  the  standpoint  of  the  moral  reformer,  as 
well  as  from  that  of  the  scholar,  he  was  a  man  of 
his  own  time. 

Now  knowledge  has  so  much  to  do  with  the 
correctness  of  human  conduct  that  no  thinker  on 
the  subject  believes  it  possible  for  a  life  to  be 
lived  which  is  perfect  in  the  sense  of  being  com- 
plete in  every  particular,  until  the  time  arrives 
when  all  the  relationships  of  men  toward  each 
other,  with  all  the  duties  arising  out  of  them 
shall  have  become  fully  known.  Ignorance  is  one 


108  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

of  the  greatest  foes  to  progress,  and  progress  is 
the  one  road  to  perfection.  If,  then,  the  perfect 
life  is  the  life  which  is  complete  in  every  particu- 
lar, Jesus  did  not  live  the  perfect  life.  His  times 
did  not  make  it  possible.  The  best  he  could  do 
was  to  live  as  complete  a  life  as  was  then  within 
his  reach.  And  he  would  find  it  the  same  to-day, 
if  he  were  here  in  the  flesh,  and  living  in  the  most 
Christian  country  on  the  planet.  If,  therefore, 
sinlessness  and  fullblown  perfection  are  to  be  con- 
sidered as  one  and  the  same  thing  in  connection 
with  a  human  life,  it  cannot  be  claimed  that  Jesus 
was  sinless.  But  this  is  by  no  means  the  last 
word  on  the  subject. 

We  have  now  reached  the  place  where  it  is 
necessary  to  state  the  self-evident  fact  that  the 
claim  that  Jesus  was  sinless  must  be  judged  by  the 
ethical  standards  of  those  magnificent  men  who 
first  put  it  forward.  What  did  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  mean  by  sinlessness  ?  After  we  have 
discovered  this,  and  decided  whether  Jesus  was 
sinless  in  the  sense  in  which  they  used  the  term, 
we  can,  if  we  wish,  ask  whether  sinlessness  in  their 
sense  could  be  regarded  as  sinlessness  here  and 
now. 

It  can  be  said  at  once  that  the  principle  which 
guided  the  New  Testament  writers  in  this  mat- 
ter is  the  common-sense  one  that  the  attitude  of 
an  individual  toward  good  and  evil  is  not  to  be 
found  in  any  outward  act  whatever,  but  in  the 
disposition  and  purpose  from  which  his  acts  pro- 


THE  SINLESSNESS  OF  JESUS      109 

ceed.  They  held  that  to  make  himself  a  sinner 
against  God  in  connection  with  any  given  action 
the  doer  of  the  deed  must  at  least  fear  beforehand 
that:  he  would  in  that  way  either  injure  his  neigh- 
bor or  disobey  or  offend  his  God,  or  that  he  would 
thus  disobey  and  offend  his  own  conscience.  They 
held,  that  is  to  say,  that  as  far  as  ignorance  ex- 
isted it  stood  forth  as  a  valid  excuse  for  any  act 
or  word  which  was  wrong  in  itself,  and  that  as 
far  as  knowledge  of  its  wrongness  stood  as- 
sociated with  any  such  word  or  act  in  the  mind 
of  the  doer  or  speaker  of  it,  that  knowledge  was 
proof  positive  of  guilt  on  his  part.  Luke  and 
John  present  the  following  as  words  of  Jesus 
himself  on  this  subject:  "The  servant  who  knows 
his  master's  wishes  and  yet  does  not  prepare  and 
act  accordingly  will  receive  many  lashes;  while 
one  who  does  not  know  his  master's  wishes,  but 
acts  so  as  to  deserve  a  flogging,  will  receive  but 
few."  "If  I  had  not  come  and  spoken  to  them, 
they  would  have  had  no  sin  to  answer  for;  but 
as  it  is  they  have  no  excuse  for  their  sin.  .  .  . 
If  I  had  not  done  among  them  such  works  as  no 
one  else  ever  did,  they  would  have  had  no  sin  to 
answer  for;  but,  as  it  is,  they  have  both  seen  and 
hated  both  me  and  my  Father"  (see  also  John 
9:41).  Paul's  words  in  his  letter  to  the  Romans 
are  terse  and  clear — "Where  no  law  exists,  no 
breach  of  it  is  possible.  .  .  .  Sin  cannot  be 
charged  against  a  man  where  no  Law  exists.  .  .  . 
Love  fully  satisfies  the  Law."  Over  against  this 


110  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

last  word  may  be  placed  this  strong  one  of  John, 
"Every  one  who  hates  his  brother  is  a  murderer." 
Jesus  and  his  apostles  after  him  emphasized 
knowledge,  on  the  one  hand,  and  disposition  on 
the  other.  They  taught  that  to  love  was  for  the 
person  loving  to  abstain  at  once  and  continually 
from  everything  known  to  him  to  be  injurious  to 
the  object  of  his  affections,  and  to  do  instead 
every  helpful  thing  that  lay  in  his  power;  and 
that  a  man  should  love  his  very  enemies.  It  was 
by  this  high  standard  that  the  apostles  of  our 
Lord  measured  him.  Let  us  listen  to  some  of 
them  as  they  announce  the  result.  Peter  says, 
"He  'never  sinned,  nor  was  anything  deceitful 
ever  heard  from  his  lips.'  He  was  abused  but  he 
did  not  answer  with  abuse ;  he  suffered  but  he  did 
not  threaten."  On  the  contrary,  "He  'himself 
carried  our  sins'  in  his  own  body  to  the  cross,  so 
that  we  might  die  to  our  sins,  and  live  for  right- 
eousness." Peter  knew  Jesus  better  than  any 
other  man,  excepting  John,  perhaps,  and  his  de- 
liberate written  word  is  that  Jesus  never  sinned 
in  either  act  or  speech.  He  never  showed  wrong 
disposition,  but  went  to  the  cross,  even,  in  the 
spirit  of  a  love  that  carried  every  sinner  on  its 
heart  in  yearning  for  his  salvation.  John's  testi- 
mony is  that  "in  him  sin  has  no  place."  He  never 
admitted  sin  into  his  nature;  so  sin  never  pre- 
pared itself  a  room  or  abiding  place  there. 
"Holy,  innocent,  spotless,  withdrawn  from  sin- 
ners," is  the  description  given  of  him  by  the 


THE  SINLESSNESS  OF  JESUS      111 

writer  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews.  And  his 
word  concerning  his  own  consciousness,  according 
to  John  8 :28,  29,  was,  "I  do  nothing  of  my- 
self. ...  I  say  just  what  the  Father  has 
taught  me.  ...  I  always  do  what  pleases 
him."  No  sins  of  presumption,  no  running  be- 
fore he  was  sent — obedience  to  the  Father  repre- 
sented by  every  word  he  uttered  and  every  deed 
he  did;  is  the  claim  that  welled  up  from  the  clear 
depths  of  Christ's  own  knowledge  of  himself,  ac- 
cording to  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

Does  someone  say,  "After  all,  however,  he  was 
a  man  of  his  own  time,  as  we  are  of  ours,  and  his 
obedience  was  only  as  far  as  he  knew.  We  know 
more  of  the  particulars  of  human  righteousness 
than  he  did,  just  as  those  who  come  after  us  will 
know  more  of  them  than  we  do.  So  admitting 
his  claims  in  full,  it  must  be  remembered  that  he 
could  not  have  lived  a  complete  human  life?" 

Such  words  as  these  have  a  foundation  in  fact 
which  we  have  already  recognized,  and  they  de- 
serve careful  attention.  The  first  thing  that 
should  be  said  in  view  of  them  is  this :  He  con- 
vinced men  whose  chief  business  in  our  world  was 
the  pursuit  of  righteousness  and  real  holiness 
that  he  never  once  failed  where  they  did — that 
his  inner  life,  as  well  as  his  outward,  was  in  per- 
fect harmony  with  all  of  moral  good  and  the  will 
of  God  that  he  did  know.  And  they  saw  so  much 
in  his  life  beyond  what  they  had  ever  been  able 
to  build  into  their  own  that  they  regarded  him 


A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

as  knowing  practically  everything.  Instead  of 
having  to  make  apologies  for  his  ignorance,  they 
stood  amazed  at  his  knowledge.  This  is  clear. 
It  is  equally  clear  that  no  other  man  ever  im- 
pressed the  hearts  of  his  fellows  in  this  manner, 
and  to  the  same  extent.  No  other  man  was  ever 
regarded  as  sinless  by  the  holiest  of  his  contem- 
poraries, who  were  at  the  same  time  the  men  who 
knew  him  best.  Here  Jesus  Christ  stands  forth 
unique  and  glorious,  clothed  with  the  perfect  calm 
which  could  enwrap  only  the  man  whose  fine  com- 
posure had  never  been  disturbed  by  any  self-ac- 
cusings.  It  was  to  the  holy  he  seemed  holiest, 
and  to  them  he  seemed  perfectly  holy. 

Now  how  would  a  life  of  this  sort  be  regarded 
if  it  should  present  itself  in  one  of  our  towns  or 
cities  to-day?  It  would  certainly  be  misunder- 
stood and  persecuted.  But  how  would  it  im- 
press men  after  it  had  run  its  remarkable  course 
and.  reached  its  extraordinary  termination?  If 
a  man  should  arise  among  ourselves  whose  every 
word  and  act,  and  his  very  dispositions,  were,  as 
far  as  we  could  see,  in  perfect  harmony  with  the 
law  of  love  toward  both  God  and  men,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  his  career — if  he  should 
seem  in  our  eyes  never  to  have  been  a  transgressor 
in  even  the  slightest  particular,  but  to  have  given 
himself  without  a  moment's  cessation  to  the  most 
unselfish  service,  alike  Godward  and  manward ; 
would  we  speak  of  him  as  having  been  sinless  or 
not? 


THE  SINLESSNESS  OF  JESUS      113 

We  know  what  sin  is.  We  have  long  defined 
it  as  any  transgression  of,  or  want  of  conformity 
to,  the  law  of  God.  And  when  we  have  been 
asked  to  define  the  law  of  God,  we  have  done  it 
in  two  ways,  and  said  (1)  It  is  that  perfect  and 
complete  ethical  code  which  is  to  be  found  in  the 
absolute  holiness  of  God  himself,  and  stands 
partly  revealed  in  the  Christian  scriptures  and 
elsewhere;  and  (2)  It  is  that  same  code  as  far 
as  it  has  become  a  matter  of  knowledge  to  any 
individual  whose  character  or  conduct  may  hap- 
pen to  be  under  consideration.  When  we  are 
asked  why  we  have  the  two  definitions,  and  not 
one  only,  we  answer  that  we  need  the  first,  be- 
cause we  must  keep  ourselves  reminded  that  the 
holiness  of  God  has  more  of  duty  and  privilege  in 
store  for  us  than  any  man  has  ever  seen  as  yet; 
and  we  need  the  second  as  a  standard  with  which 
to  measure  individual  accountability,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  individual  moral  worth,  on  the  other; 
since  the  first  cannot  be  used  in  this  way  at  all, 
on  account  of  the  fact  that  beyond  a  certain  point 
no  man  has  ever  yet  known  what  it  is  in  its  va- 
rious particulars.  In  other  words,  no  man  can 
test  another  by  the  standard  of  absolute  holiness. 
For  no  man  knows  what  that  standard  is,  except 
in  part.  He  can  judge  only  by  the  particulars 
he  knows,  whether  it  is  himself  or  another  he  has 
under  scrutiny.  So  any  man  who  should  in  dis- 
position and  purpose,  as  well  as  in  word  and 
deed,  live  in  complete  and  positive  obedience  to 


114  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

all  the  requirements  of  the  divine  holiness,  as  far 
as  they  have  become  known  to  him,  would  be  sin- 
less from  the  viewpoint  of  his  own  consciousness. 
And  if  some  man  with  a  larger  knowledge  of  these 
requirements  than  any  or  all  of  his  contemporaries 
should  attain  to  this  complete  and  positive  obe- 
dience, he  would  be  sinless,  not  only  from  the 
viewpoint  of  his  own  consciousness,  but  also,  and 
even  more  distinctly,  in  the  unprejudiced  opinion 
of  all  who  knew  him.  That  is  to  say,  if  Jesus 
had  led  a  nineteenth-century  life  with  the  same 
devotion  to  God  and  duty  that  he  showed  in  the 
first-century  life  that  he  actually  did  live,  there 
would  be  no  hesitation  on  our  part  in  ascribing 
sinlessness  to  him  to-day,  particularly  if  he  had 
begun  his  public  career  during  the  second  half, 
beginning,  let  us  say,  with  1875. 

Sinlessness  is  one  thing;  absolute  holiness,  and 
even  complete  human  righteousness,  another.  It 
was  probably  because  Jesus,  the  human  learner, 
had  discovered  this  for  himself  that  he  turned  so 
sharply  once  upon  a  flattering  inquirer  with  the 
word,  "Why  do  you  call  me  good?  No  one  is 
good  but  God."  The  New  Testament  claim  for 
Jesus  is  simply  that  he  was  sinless. 

Jesus  was  not  jealous  of  those  who  were  to 
succeed  him.  He  was  at  once  too  generous  and 
too  sure  of  himself  for  that.  He  knew  the  future 
would  be  his,  and  rejoiced  all  the  more  because 
those  who  were  to  follow  him  would  surpass  him 
in  their  grip1  upon  the  whole  human  situation,  and 


THE  SINLESSNESS  OF  JESUS      115 

in  the  things  they  would  be  able  to  accomplish. 
He  knew  that  their  success  would  be  his,  along 
with  the  whole  new  order  of  things  which  he  came 
to  establish,  and  retired  to  superintend  under  his 
Father. 

Our  conclusion  touching  the  sinlessness  of 
Jesus  is  this:  Complete  human  righteousness  fol- 
lows upon  complete  human  knowledge  along  eth- 
ical lines,  and  can  never  be  attained  apart  from 
it.  Jesus  came  fairly  to  open  up  the  way  for 
this  attainment  by  living  a  life  in  perfect  inner 
agreement  with  the  highest  principles  that  can 
ever  govern  a  human  career,  and  in  complete 
harmony  with  the  fullest  ethical  knowledge  of  his 
time;  that  is  to  say,  he  came  to  do,  and  actually 
did,  all  that  a  man  of  his  time  could  possibly  do 
along  the  lines  of  ethical  duty.  And  in  doing 
this  he  accomplished  a  thing  which  was  never 
done  before,  and  has  never  been  done  since.  He 
never  failed  in  either  disposition  or  purpose,  but 
lived  towards  both  God  and  his  fellows,  from  first 
to  last,  a  life  that  was,  not  only  to  those  holy 
men  who  knew  him  best,  but  also  to  his  own  highly 
enlightened  and  sensitive  conscience,  free  from 
every  stain  of  wrongdoing  on  the  one  hand,  and 
of  neglected  duty  on  the  other.  It  may  be  con- 
fidently added  that  in  achieving  this  moral  and 
spiritual  triumph  he  reached  in  principle  a  height 
beyond  which  no  man  can  ever  go.  For  it  is  im- 
possible for  anyone  to  do  more  than  live  up  to 
his  own  highest  light.  And,  let  me  repeat  it,  the 


116  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

glory   of   that   achievement,    so    far,   belongs    to 
Jesus  Christ  alone. 

Two  other  questions  seem  to  demand  an  an- 
swer before  this  discussion  closes.  Was  sinless- 
ness  easier  in  Jesus's  day  than  men  find  it  now? 
Let  each  reach  his  answer  as  he  notes  the  tre- 
mendous odds  which  truth  and  righteousness  had 
to  face  in  that  old  world  of  decayed  and  aban- 
doned ideals.  Will  sinlessness  be  easier  or  more 
difficult  when  all  men  have  at  length,  through  the 
spirit  of  Jesus,  been  lifted  to  the  high  level  of 
complete  knowledge  of  their  duties  towards  God 
and  each  other?  They  will  then  all  be  helpers 
of  each  other,  and1  they  will  remember  to  his  glory 
and  praise  that  he  alone  kept  the  sinless  way 
when  the  task  was  all  but  impossible  even  for 
himself,  because  every  man  he  met  was  to  some 
extent,  at  least,  a  hinderer.  Knowledge  of  right- 
eousness can  advance  to  completeness  among  men 
only  as  their  practice  of  it  pursues  the  same  direc- 
tion. On  the  other  hand,  each  access  of  genuine 
spiritual  consecration  must  inevitably  result  in  a 
broader  vision,  until  at  length,  every  earthly  duty 
stands  forth  plain  and  unmistakable,  and  each 
member  of  our  race  then  inhabiting  this  planet 
has  been  both  disposed  and  empowered  to  live 
agreeably  with  his  all-round  knowledge  of  right- 
eousness Godward  and  manward. 


VIII 
JESUS  THE  SOCIAL  REFORMER 

No  man  who  has  read  the  New  Testament 
stories  of  Levi's  feast  in  honor  of  Jesus,  the  con- 
version of  Zacchaeus  and  that  other  feast  in  the 
house  of  Simon,  at  which  Jesus  was  more  honored 
by  a  woman  of  the  street  than  by  Simon  himself, 
and  has  added  to  these  the  twenty-third  chapter 
of  Matthew,  can  doubt  the  fact  that  Jesus  stood 
in  the  most  radical  way  for  a  reform  of  the  social 
system  of  his  time  and  place.  And  these  are  not 
the  only  instances  given  us  of  acts  and  words  of 
his  which  show  the  deep  interest  he  took  in  social 
conditions,  and  the  radical  manner  in  which  he 
handled  the  social  problems  which  confronted  him. 

Wherever  it  was  possible  he  proceeded  guard- 
edly and  cautiously  with  the  work  which  he  un- 
dertook in  this  direction.  He  refused  to  assume 
the  role  of  a  judge  in  a  property  dispute  and  dis- 
missed the  man  who  tried  to  get  a  verdict  from 
him,  with  this  finalizing  question — 

"Man,  who  made  me  a  judge  or  an  arbiter  be- 
tween you?"  (Luke  12:14).  And  when  an  at- 
tempt was  made  to  draw  from  him  a  compromis- 
ing word  on  the  vexed  question  whether  a  faith- 
ful Jew  should  or  should  not  pay  taxes  to  his 
117 


118  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Roman  conqueror,  his  reply  was  as  safe  as  it  was 
skillful  and  unanswerable. 

"Why  are  you  testing  me?  Bring  me  a  florin 
to  look  at.  And  when  they  had  brought  it,  he 
asked:  'Whose  head  and  title  are  these?'  'The 
Emperor's,'  they  said ;  and  Jesus  replied :  'Pay 
to  the  Emperor  what  belongs  to  the  Emperor  and 
to  God  what  belongs  to  God.' "  Jesus  always 
took  the  highest  ground  and  spoke  as  the  prophet 
of  God.  His  appeal  was  to  first  principles.  And 
when  he  saw  that  this  was  not  sufficiently  real- 
ized he  stated  the  fact  tersely  and  distinctly: — 
"Do  not  think  that  I  have  come  to  do  away  with 
the  Law  or  the  Prophets ;  I  have  not  come  to  do 
away  with  them,  but  to  complete  them."  (Matt. 
5:17.) 

He  affirmed  the  progressive  revelation  of  God 
and  duty,  and  looked  towards  that 

".     .     .     one  far-off  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

But  he  saw  that  each  generation  and  each  man 
had  his  inevitable  steps  to  take  in  the  one  general 
direction,  knew  the  steps  which  he  himself  should 
take,  and  took  them. 

The  taking  of  these  steps  cost  him  his  life. 
Had  he  temporized  and  compromised  he  might 
perhaps  have  lived  on  to  old  age  and  died  in  his 
bed.  But  he  could  not  have  either  lived  or  died 
thus  as  the  prophet  of  God,  and  much  less  as  his 
San.  The  man  who  has  "no  stomach  for  martyr- 


JESUS  THE  SOCIAL  REFORMER     119 

dom"  can  never  rise  to  the  highest  place  in  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  makes  too  low  a  bid  for 
even  the  full  and  lasting  approval  of  his  fellows. 
If  Jesus  was  not  an  Erasmus  in  poverty  of  reso- 
lution, he  was  an  Erasmus  in  the  perils  he  had 
to  meet  and  the  odds  he  had  to  face,  if  he  went 
straight  on.  The  same  Priest  and  Lawyer  who 
had  stood  up  in  deadly  hostility  to  every  great 
advance  and  every  great  reform  of  the  past  were 
still  there  to  be  reckoned  with.  Before  the  close 
of  the  first  year  of  his  public  career  Jesus  had 
abundant  evidence  of  this  fact,  and  was  led  in 
view  of  it  to  choose  a  small  band,,  whom  he  might 
furnish  as  far  as  possible  with  his  own  ideas,  and 
inspire  with  his  own  courage  and  devotion.  He 
made  that  band  twelve,  that  it  might  represent 
all  Israel  and  give  proper  headship  to  each  of  its 
tribes.  (Luke  6 :1-16 ;  Matt.  19 :28.)  Israel  had 
to  be  reconstituted.  If  Jesus  saw  this  vaguely 
at  first,  he  soon  saw  it  clearly  enough  to  proceed 
upon  these  lines,  which  were  at  once  symbolical 
and  practical. 

The  general  principle  upon  which  Jesus  pro- 
ceeded in  his  programme  of  reform  was  that  of 
the  rights  of  man.  These  words  may  bear  an  ill 
savor  to  the  nostrils  of  some,  because  of  their 
association  with  the  excesses  of  a  time  in  which 
the  highest  Christian  aim,  so  far  as  earthly  things 
go,  found  itself  associated  with  the  fiercest 
renunciation  of  Christianity,  the  bible  and  God 
himself.  The  Priest  and  the  Lawyer  together 


120  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

had  by  their  perfectly  devilish  oppressions  in  the 
name  of  Christ — oppressions  of  body,  mind,  re- 
ligious aspirations  and  worldly  estate — secured 
the  flat  denial,  in  the  name  of  all  that  was  holy 
in  manhood,  of  the  name  of  the  divine  man  which 
they  had  so  unworthily  and  so  falsely  worn.  But 
further  they  were  unable  to  go.  They  could  not 
kill  out  of  God's  world  the  original  inspiration 
of  God's  Christ,  and  frenzied  mob  and  frenzied 
legislature  and  executive  alike,  proclaimed  The 
Rights  of  Man,  and  knew  them  to  be  holy. 
Christ  inspired,  though  he  did  not  direct,  the 
French  Revolution.  The  hate  that  was  in  it  was 
not  his,  but  the  work  which  it  effected  has  never 
been  undone.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  still  being 
carried  on  towards  its  completion  under  the  eyes 
of  all  the  peoples.  And  besides,  the  unavoidable 
misunderstanding,  which  stood  associated  with  it, 
and  for  which  the  Priest  and  Lawyer  were  wholly 
responsible,  is  fast  passing  away,  and  the  Christ 
is  evidently  about  to  come  to  his  own  in  France  as 
never  before.  Already  the  Lawyer  and  a  con- 
siderable body  of  the  Priests  are  under  his  direc- 
tion to  do  his  will  as  far  and  as  fast  as  that  will 
becomes  known  to  them.  That  in  many  instances 
they  do  not  recognize  the  fact  makes  no  differ- 
ence. Was  not  the  word  of  Jehovah  to  Cyrus — 

"I  will  gird  thee,  though  thou  hast  not  known 
me?" 

The  rights  of  men  were  always  holy  to  the 
prophets  whether  they  were  the  rights  of  a 


JESUS  THE  SOCIAL  REFORMER     121 

Naboth,  a  Uriah,  some  poor  widow,  or  the  rights 
of  a  whole  people.  Not  only  Micah  and  Isaiah 
but  every  true  messenger  of  Jehovah  besides,  was 
prepared  to  risk  his  life  in  their  defense.  Prop- 
erty rights,  home  rights,  the  rights  of  a  husband 
in  his  wife  and  the  rights  of  the  wife  in  her  hus- 
band, the  rights  of  parents  in  their  children  and 
of  children  in  their  parents,  the  rights  of  the 
ruler  over  his  subjects  and  of  subjects  in  the  pres- 
ence of  their  ruler,  the  rights  of  men  generally 
in  the  presence  of  each  other,  and  above  all  the 
right  of  each  Israelite  to  an  unhindered  ac- 
quaintance with,  and  a  worship  in  spirit  and  in 
truth,  of  the  holy  and  invisible  God  of  his  fathers, 
these  rights  were  continually  insisted  upon  be- 
fore kings  and  rulers  and  at  all  hazards  by 
Jehovah's  prophets  all  down  the  centuries.  But 
they  were  never  insisted  upon  so  graciously,  yet 
vehemently,  so  intelligently  and  so  passionately, 
as  by  Jesus  himself.  It  was  he  first  who  spoke 
about  the  rights  of  man  as  man — rights  of  man 
as  man  in  the  presence  of  his  Creator  and  Moral 
Governor — rights  of  each  man  as  a  man  in  the 
presence  of  his  fellows. 

Jesus  acknowledged  no  personal  or  property 
rights  of  the  strong,  no  rights  of  the  rich  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  poor,  no  rights  of  the  learned 
as  distinguished  from  the  unlearned,  no  rights 
of  the  morally  upright  and  respectable  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  fallen  and  the  outcast.  The 
doctrine  of  human  rights  which  Jesus  preached 


122  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

was  the  very  antipodes  of  all  this.  The  weak 
had  a  right  to  the  care  of  the  strong,  the  poor 
a  right  to  the  help  of  the  rich,  the  sick  a  right 
to  the  aid  of  the  healthy,  the  ignorant  a  right  to 
the  instruction  of  the  learned,  and  the  fallen  and 
the  wretched  a  right  to  the  loving,  patient  re- 
claiming effort  of  the  morally  upright  and  re- 
spectable. So  precisely  where  the  favored  classes 
had  been  finding  rights  of  a  special  kind  Jesus 
uncovered  duties.  Superiority  creates  the  obliga- 
tion to  serve  rather  than  the  privilege  to  enjoy, 
was  his  constant  teaching.  And  he  brought  him- 
self forward  as  the  supreme  evidence  of  the  truth 
of  this  doctrine.  To  his  own  twelve  in  their 
craving  for  place  and  honor  he  said: 

"Those  who  are  regarded  as  ruling  among  the 
Gentiles  lord  it  over  them,  as  you  know,  and  their 
great  men  oppress  them.  But  among  you  it  is 
not  so.  No.  Whoever  wants  to  become  great 
among  you  must  be  your  servant,  and  whoever 
wants  to  take  the  first  place  among  you  must  be 
the  servant  of  all ;  for  even  the  Son  of  Man  came, 
not  to  be  served,  but  to  serve,  and  to  give  his 
life  as  a  ransom  for  many."  (Mark  10:42-45.) 
The  higher,  the  stronger  and  the  holier  one  is, 
the  larger  his  obligation  to  serve  his  low  and 
weak  and  sinful  fellows,  is  the  constant  teaching 
of  Jesus.  And  he  goes  further  yet.  He  declares 
that  the  right  of  the  helplessly  sinful  to  the 
salvation  he  alone  could  bring  them  was  so  great 
because  God  had  created  them  men,  with  all  a 


JESUS  THE  SOCIAL  REFORMER     123 

man's  right  to  truth  and  holiness,  that,  in 
recognition  of  all  the  facts,  he  had  to  take  his 
place  as  a  man  among  them,  to  do,  and  suffer  in 
the  doing,  all  that  needed  to  be  done  and  suffered 
in  their  behalf. 

In  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  therefore,  individual 
rights  are  based  upon  individual  needs,  and  each 
man's  claim  upon  the  help  of  others  becomes  in- 
sistent at  the  precise  point  where  his  power  to 
help  himself  finds  its  limit.  To  Jesus  the  human 
race  was  a  family  of  which  his  own  Father  was 
the  head  and  the  provider.  Whether  Jesus  ever 
distinctly  regarded  himself  as  a  brother  of  every 
man  may  not  be  clear,  but  that  he  came  to  be 
regarded  by  his  followers  as  a  brother  to  those 
who  received  him  as  their  Savior  is  very  evident 
to  the  careful  reader  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews. 
And  was  not  this  conclusion  inevitable  from  the 
moment  he  spoke  of  God  to  his  disciples  as  "My 
Father  and  your  Father" — just  as  inevitable  as 
it  was  that  they  should  have  reached  the  doctrine 
of  the  brotherhood  of  men  in  general  from  the 
"Our  Father"  which  he  prepared  for  all  human 
lips?  In  the  family  the  supply  of  need  is  never 
a  question  of  earning  power  to  start  with.  Hus- 
band and  wife  do  not  constitute  a  family.  In 
Jesus  teaching  the  two  are  but  one  from  the 
family  viewpoint.  In  them  as  thus  united  the 
family  finds  its  possibility  and,  when  the  union 
is  fruitful,  its  source.  Each  new  family  finds  its 
right  to  be  called  such  in  the  birth  of  a 


A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

human  babe  that  has  the  instant  right,  though 
not  the  instant  ability,  to  look  up  and  call 
the  man  and  woman  immediately  concerned 
father  and  mother.  And  before  the  human 
court,  as  well  as  before  Heaven,  this  right 
of  a  child  to  say  father  and  mother  carries 
with  it  the  right  to  demand  everything-  which 
its  weakness  and  helplessness  may  require, 
and  for  as  many  years  as  these  may  render  it 
incapable  of  self-support  and  self -development. 
It  is  also  true  that  in  the  family  sickness,  physical 
or  moral,  makes  the  same  claims  as  infancy.  In 
other  words,  in  this  world  of  God  our  Father, 
the  measure  of  the  individual's  need,  truly  taken, 
is  always  and  in  every  direction  the  measure  of 
his  rights.  Commercial  principles  of  the  short- 
sighted human  variety  at  least,  are  set  at  de- 
fiance under  the  government  of  the  Father.  To 
him  loss  is  gain  and  death  is  life.  To  gain  all 
love  loses  all,  and  in  the  end  love  will  own  all  that 
exists.  The  goal  of  our  humanity  under  the 
leadership  of  Jesus  Christ  is  an  innumerable 
family  in  which  health  and  vigor  and  plenty  con- 
tinue forever,  under  the  care  of  the  infinite 
Father.  (Eph.  3:14,  15;  Col.  1:20.) 

This  is  the  direction  in  which  Jesus  was  looking 
when  he  puzzled  men  with  such  sayings  as — 

"It  is  not  those  who  are  in  health  that  need 
a  doctor  but  those  who  are  ill.  I  did  not  rome 
to  call  the  religious,  but  the  outcast."  (Mark 
3:17.)  And  as  he  himself  implies  in  this  very 


JESUS  THE  SOCIAL  REFORMER     125 

word,  his  face  was  always  in  this  direction.  We 
shall  never  reach  the  stage  of  the  platitude  here, 
not  even  when  through  his  church  Jesus  shall  at 
length  see  all  the  long  travail  of  his  soul  realized 
in  perfected  men  living  in  perfected  conditions. 
For  the  perfected  will  never  be  the  finished.  The 
infinite  must  forever  be  realizing  itself  in  grow- 
ingly  glorious  ways.  The  completion  of  the 
Christly  kingdom  marks  the  beginning  of  that 
which  is  diviner  still  (1st  Cor.  15:28). 

Noting  now  some  of  the  applications  which 
Jesus  gave  to  these  high  principles  I  may  first 
refer  to  his  teaching  on  the  weekly  day  of  rest. 
His  word  is  that  it  represents  a  human  right 
growing  out  of  a  human  need,1  and  that  its  observ- 
ance must  be  so  ordered  as  not  to  bring  it  into 
conflict  with  any  other  genuinely  human  interest. 
He  was  most  insistent  at  this  point ;  so  much  so 
that  one  is  almost  tempted  to  think  that  once  or 
twice  he  even  went  out  of  his  way  for  the  sake 
of  exposing  the  absurdity  of  the  Pharisaic  no- 
tions which  had  made  the  day  in  some  respects 
a  burden  instead  of  a  blessing.  Jesus  was  a 
Sabbath  law  reformer.  He  set  out  to  rationalize 
it.  Rationalize  is  still  a  word  hated  by  every 
Pharisee.  As  long  as  his  hide-hound,  heartless 
and  supercilious  race  continues  to  bring  forth  its 
characteristic  progeny  this  distrust  and  dislike 
of  the  unfettered  human  intellect  will  continue  to 
be  cherished.  The  Pharisee  hates  that  appeal  to 
first  principles  which  throws  light  upon  every 


126  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

problem  that  vexes  the  human  mind  and  con- 
science. Jesus,  as  the  antipodes  of  the  Pharisee, 
placed  his  whole  reliance  upon  this  appeal.  He 
knew  that  men  came  into  the  life  of  genuine 
obedience  through  seeing  and  knowing  the  truth 
of  things,  and  in  this  way  only.  So  to  the 
Pharisee's  word  in  religious  matters  do  not  think, 
but  listen  to  the  voice  of  your  spiritual  supe- 
riors, Jesus  opposed  the  command  to  think  right 
down  to  the  bed-rock,  and  build  duty  upon  that 
alone.  And  the  first  thing  to  be  sure  about  re- 
garding the  Sabbath,  he  went  on  to  say,  is  that 
it  was  made  for  man,  and  not  he  for  it,  to  be- 
come its  bond-slave.  He  is  its  master,  just  as  he 
is  the  master  of  his  horse  or  his  house.  He  is 
the  master  of  it  as  man  knowing  God  and  not  as 
an  animal,  however.  He  is  its  master  as  one 
who  needs  both  physical  rest  and  spiritual  re- 
freshment. And  it  is  forever  his  to  say  what 
precise  uses  he  must  make  of  it  in  his  own  real 
interests.  That  responsibility  has  been  laid  upon 
him  by  God.  And  so  I,  not  as  Son  of  God,  but 
as  Son  of  Man  and  representative  of  all  Israel, 
am  charged  with  the  distinct  duty  of  assuring 
you  that  an  irrational  Sabbath  observance  is  the 
very  opposite  of  that  which  God  requires  at  your 
hands.  Wake  up  and  think,  and  when  through 
thinking  you  have  come  to  see  what  a  genuinely 
rational  observance  of  the  day  is,  then  take  your 
rest,  on  the  one  hand,  and  perform  your  acts  of 
worship,  on  the  other,  in  the  strictest  conformity 


JESUS  THE  SOCIAL  REFORMER     127 

with  the  views  which  you  will  then  entertain. 
You  are  not  God's  slaves,  but  free  men  in  the 
enjoyment  of  a  great  God-given  possession ; 
therefore  play  the  part  of  men  by  being  true 
to  yourselves.  Of  course  the  Pharisee  could  never 
understand  anything  so  sensible  as  this,  and  the 
Pharisee  was  strong.  Jesus  could  see  that  he 
was  creating  grave  perils  for  himself,  but  he 
went  bravely  on. 

There  has  been  much  debate  over  the  question 
whether  Jesus  took  any  definite  ground  on  the 
subject  of  war.  Here  one  needs  to  proceed  care- 
fully. But  it  is  safe  to  make  at  least  two  affirma- 
tions. The  first  is  this :  He  held  himself  com- 
pletely aloof,  as  I  have  shown  elsewhere,  from 
every  position  which  would  have  made  him  even 
seem  to  assume  responsibility  for  the  existence 
or  contemplation  of  armed  force.  This  negative 
condemnation  was  as  pronounced  as  it  could  be 
made.  He  simply  would  not  be  made  a  king,  and 
the  testimony  of  Matthew  and  Luke  is  that  he 
assumed  this  attitude  at  the  very  opening  of  his 
ministry,  because  he  saw  with  perfect  distinctness 
that  the  office  would  have  to  reach  him  from  the 
hands  of  that  arch-murderer  the  devil. 

The  second  thing  which  may  be  safely  affirmed 
here  is  that  Jesus  pronounced  most  strongly 
against  all  personal  violence.  His  warning  to 
Peter  when  he  struck  Malchus  could  not  have  been 
made  more  emphatic,  and  his  testimony  before 
Pilate  on  the  subject  left  nothing  to  be  added. 


128  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

At  the  same  time  it  is  quite  true  that  Jesus  at- 
tempted no  crusade  against  either  the  existence 
or  employment  of  armed  forces.  The  time  was 
not  ripe  for  that.  So  he  contented  himself  with 
stating  most  distinctly  his  own  attitude  towards 
them,  and  left  his  witness  and  his  example  to  do 
the  work  they  are  so  clearly  doing  at  this  mo- 
ment. Personally  Jesus  was  certainly  opposed, 
and  consciously  so,  to  every  sort  of  physical 
violence.  And  how  could  this  have  been  other- 
wise? For  Jesus  had  a  perfect  passion  for  jus- 
tice. And  war  in  the  name  of  justice  is  mon- 
strous. Can  justice  be  reached  through  the  tak- 
ing of  unoffending  human  lives?  If  rulers  did 
their  own  bloody  work  when  their  quarrels  grow 
hot  enough  for  the  appeal  to  the  sword,  the  mat- 
ter might  look  less  serious.  But  even  then  the 
case  would  really  be  the  same.  The  question 
whether  this  man  or  that,  or  this  nation  or  the 
other,  is  entitled  to  a  given  piece  of  property  or 
territory,  cannot  possibly  be  determined  through 
finding  out  by  a  bloody  test  which  has  the  clever- 
est knack  at  taking  human  lives  and  destroying 
valuable  property.  The  question  is  one  with 
which  the  intellect  and  conscience  alone  are  fitted 
to  deal,  and  war  or  physical  violence  can  never 
be  resorted  to  without  perpetrating  a  fraud 
against  both.  It  was  this  fact  which  led  to  the 
establishment  of  courts  of  justice  in  every  land, 
and  to  the  erection  so  recently  of  a  court  of 
justice  of  international  scope. 


JESUS  THE  SOCIAL  REFORMER     129 

Tennyson  heard  the  pistol  shots  in  the  duel 
between  Maud's  lovers.  Later,  too,  he  heard  the 
lover  who  survived  moaning  his  moan  thus : 

"For  front  to  front  in  an  hour  we  stood, 
And  a  million  horrible  bellowing  echoes  broke 
From  the  red-ribbed  hollow  behind  the  wood, 
And  thundered  up  into  Heaven  the  Christless  code, 
That  must  have  life  for  a  blow." 

But,  as  he  himself  suggests,  the  awfulness  of 
the  echo  made  by  the  shot  which  proved  fatal 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  it  reached  him  mixed 
with  echoes  of  the  voice  of  Jesus,  which  repeated 
his 

"I,  however,  say  to  you  that  you  must  not  re- 
sist wrong;  but  if  any  one  strikes  you  on  the 
right  cheek,  turn  the  other  to  him  also. 
Love  your  enemies,  and  pray  for  those  that  per- 
secute you,  that  you  may  become  Sons  of  your 
Father  who  is  in  Heaven;  for  he  causes  his  sun 
to  rise  on  the  bad  and  good  alike,  and  sends  rain 
upon  the  righteous  and  upon  the  unrighteous." 
(Matt.  5:39,  44,  45.) 

Jesus  forbade  the  blow  which  it  is  most  difficult 
to  hinder,  that  he  might  thus  put  a  stop  to  all 
blows  besides.  His  veto  was  directed  against  the 
very  battle  which  men  have  thought  they  must 
wage  in  self-defense.  And  he  lived  as  he  taught, 
going  to  the  cross  at  last  as  a  positive  advocate 
of  non-resistance,  on  behalf  both  of  himself  and 
of  all  who  called  him  Master.  (John  18:36.) 


130  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Looking  in  another  direction  we  see  Jesus  doing 
all  he  could  to  educate  men  into  such  a  practice 
of  truthfulness  as  would  secure  the  facts  in  every 
matter  with  which  they  might  have  to  deal,  either 
privately  or  publicly,  against  all  conscious  mis- 
representation. It  was  for  the  sake  of  this  that 
he  attacked  the  taking  of  an  oath  to  bind  one's 
self  to  tell  a  true  story  anywhere.  Why  should 
a  man  bind  himself  to  be  truthful  in  one  case, 
unless  he  were  free  to  confess  himself  a  man  of 
unregenerate  speech  in  the  general  way?  Surely 
the  person  who  really  needed  to  be  dealt  with  in 
such  a  humiliating  fashion  before  a  court  of  law, 
must  be  so  lacking  in  fairmindedness  as  to  be  un- 
reliable even  then !  He  must  be  accustomed  to 
lying,  and  how  can  a  man  who  has  trained  himself 
long  in  prevarication,  bring  himself  to  even  see 
the  whole  truth  of  a  thing  during  some  brief  mo- 
ment, which  may  make  a  special  demand  upon 
him?  The  one  way  to  a  true  statement  at  any 
particular  time  lies  through  making  true  state- 
ments at  all  times.  And  the  one  way  to  the 
statement  which  is  in  all  respects  true  to  fact 
must  always  lie  through  the  unswerving  pur- 
pose and  effort  to  be  absolutely  true  in  all  one's 
views  of  things,  as  well  as  in  each  of  one's 
statements  concerning  them.  Therefore  said 
Jesus : 

"Let  your  words  be  simply  'Yes'  or  'No';  any- 
thing beyond  this  comes  from  what  is  wrong." 
And  this  word  is  as  invulnerable  as  it  was  em- 


JESUS  THE  SOCIAL  REFORMER     131 

phatic,  as  important  and  necessary  as  it  was  far 
in  advance  of  the  time. 

In  the  matter  of  divorce  Jesus  took  ground 
equally  high.  We  may  assume  that  his  disciples 
were  familiar  with  the  teachings  of  Hillel  and 
Shammai,  and  knew  that  the  latter  opposed  the 
loose  ideas  of  the  former  by  insisting  that  a  suffi- 
cient ground  for  divorce  could  be  found  in  noth- 
ing short  of  adultery.  Jesus  astonished  his  dis- 
ciples in  a  way  which  at  least  suggests  that  he 
went  so  much  farther  than  Shammai  himself  that 
he  pronounced  the  marriage  tie  absolutely  in- 
dissoluble in  the  very  nature  of  things. 

"Have  you  not  read  .  .  .  that  the  man 
and  his  wife  become  one?  So,  when  once  they  are 
married,  they  are  no  longer  two  but  one.  What 
God  himself,  then,  has  yoked  together  man  must 
not  separate." 

"Why  then,"  they  said,  "did  Moses  direct  that 
a  man  should  serve  his  wife  with  a  notice  of 
separation  and  divorce  her?" 

"Moses,  owing  to  the  hardness  of  your  hearts," 
answered  Jesus,  "permitted  you  to  divorce 
your  wives,  but  that  was  not  so  at  the  begin- 
ning. .  .  ." 

"If  that,"  said  the  disciples,  "is  the  position 
of  a  man  in  regard  to  his  wife,  it  is  better  not  to 
marry." 

"It  is  not  every  one,"  replied  Jesus,  "who  can 
accept  this  teaching,  but  only  those  who  have 
been  enabled  to  do  so."  (Matt.  9 :3-ll.) 


132  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

There  are  two  ways  of  attempting1  to  account 
for  this  amazement  and  dismay  of  the  disciples. 
One  may  take  the  ground  that  they  regarded 
Shammai  as  so  severe  that  they  stood  with  Hillel 
for  an  easy  dissolution  of  the  marriage  bond,  and 
were  astonished  that  Jesus,  who  opposed  the 
severity  of  the  Sabbath  laws  of  the  time,  should 
have  taken  his  stand  so  definitely  for  strictness 
here.  One  has  strong  reasons,  however,  for  doubt- 
ing that  the  disciples  were  in  this  matter  fol- 
lowers of  Hillel.  But  if  they  accepted  the  teach- 
ings of  Shammai  there  was  no  ground  whatever 
for  their  dismay  unless  Jesus  actually  declared 
that  not  even  adultery  was  a  sufficient  ground  for 
divorce.  On  the  other  hand,  too,  would  Jesus 
have  said  that  only  those  who  have  been  enabled 
to  do  so  have  accepted  this,  the  teaching  of  God 
from  the  beginning,  if  he  was  at  the  same  time 
merely  announcing  that  he  stood  firmly  with 
Shammai,  and  went  no  further.  It  looks,  indeed, 
as  if  Jesus  pronounced  against  divorce  as  ab- 
solutely on  this  occasion  as  both  before  and  after- 
wards he  did  against  every  sort  of  violence  against 
the  person,  and  as  if  the  words  "for  every  cause" 
in  the  third  verse,  and  the  words  "except  on  the 
ground  of  her  unchasity"  in  the  ninth  and  else- 
where had  been  supplied  or  interpolated  by  some 
hand  at  some  time. 

Very  clearly  if  Jesus  taught  thus  on  this 
subject  our  world  has  a  long  way  to  go  be- 
fore it  will  be  found  marching  side  by  side  with 


JESUS  THE  SOCIAL  REFORMER     133 

him,  for  it  has  not  yet  overtaken  its  Shammais. 

In  short  Jesus  stood  for  perfect  justice  for 
every  human  being,  and  demanded  that  justice 
both  from  the  court  of  law  and  from  society  at 
large.  He  saw  and  taught  also  that  justice  could 
never  be  attained  apart  from  the  largest  exercise 
of  mercy  and  love.  His  doctrine  was,  as  I  have 
tried  to  show,  that  helplessness,  physical,  moral 
or  spiritual,  creates  the  most  peremptory  rights 
of  all.  Justice  divorced  from  mercy  and  love  was, 
therefore,  regarded  by  him  as  no  justice  at  all. 
This  is  why  he  dealt  so  unsparingly  with  that 
legal  dodge  by  means  of  which  the  "Pharisees  and 
Teachers  of  the  Law"  had  managed  to  turn  into 
the  coffers  of  the  Temple,  which  were  very  largely 
under  their  control,  so  much  wealth,  which  should 
have  been  devoted  by  the  heartless  religious  de- 
votees concerned  to  the  really  pious  use  of  keep- 
ing their  own  fathers  and  mothers  back  from  the 
dire  straits  of  poverty  in  the  helplessness  of  their 
old  age.  (Matt.  15:3-6.)  "Hypocrites"  was  the 
one  suitable  word  which  Jesus  found  to  place  as 
a  label  upon  this  sort  of  religionist  at  this  time. 
Later  he  chose  "fools,"  "blind  guides"  and  "chil- 
dren of  hell"  as  suitable  additions.  (Matt.  23.) 

To  him,  for  the  man  or  woman  who  was  down, 
justice  meant  a  genuine  chance  to  rise.  He  saw 
very  clearly  that  ostracism  did  not  provide  for 
this  in  any  adequate  way.  It  simply  meant  in- 
stead— Get  to  the  devil  out  of  this,  for  that  is 
where  you  belong.  In  ostracism  there  was  neither 


134  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

love  nor  mercy.  It  was  a  compound  of  contempt 
and  hate.  What  a  genuine  chance  really  meant 
he  told  in  his  stories  of  the  lost  coin,  the  lost 
sheep,  and  the  lost  son.  It  meant  all  that  the 
utmost  strength  and  skill  of  love  to  the  utter- 
most could  devise  and  do  for  and  with  the  lost 
man  and  the  lost  woman — that,  and  nothing  less 
than  that.  It  meant  the  coming  of  God  himself 
in  the  person  of  a  man  into  precisely  this  rela- 
tionship with  outcast  men  and  fallen  women  and 
every  other  sort  of  sinner.  And  the  coming  of 
this  man  into  this  relationship  was  a  call  to  every 
happily  privileged  man  and  woman  to  join  him 
in  his  saving  tasks.  The  moment  men  and  women 
knew  themselves  to  be  the  Sons  and  daughters  of 
the  Lord  God  Almighty  they  were  to  understand 
that  they  had  been  taken  into  the  family,  or  born 
into  it  by  spiritual  regeneration,  to  be  the  as- 
sociates of  Jesus  in  this  age-long  work.  It  was 
for  this  the  church  on  earth  was  constituted,  and 
for  this  it  has  been  perpetuated.  Paul  knew  this 
when  he  labored  in  degraded  Corinth.  Con- 
sequently after  writing  to  the  church  which  he 
organized  there — "Do  not  be  deceived.  No  one 
who  is  immoral,  or  an  idolater,  or  an  adulterer,  or 
licentious,  or  a  sodomite,  or  a  thief,  or  covetous, 
or  a  drunkard,  or  abusive,  or  grasping,  will  have 
any  share  in  God's  kingdom ;"  he  was  able  to  add : 
"Such  some  of  you  used  to  be ;  but  you  washed 
yourselves  clean!  You  became  Christ's  People! 
You  were  pronounced  righteous  through  the  name 


JESUS  THE  SOCIAL  REFORMER     135 

of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  through  the  Spirit 
of  our  God!"      (1st  Cor.  6:9-11.) 

While  here  in  the  flesh  Jesus  immortalized  the 
names  of  Levi  and  Zacchaeus.  He  immortalized 
also  "a  woman  who  was  an  outcast  in  the  town" 
(Luke  7:37).  His  motto  was — God's  will,  which 
I  came  to  do  myself,  and  to  teach  others  to  do,  is 
that  every  fallen  man  and  woman  should  be  given 
that  genuine  chance  to  rise  which  can  be  secured 
for  him  only  by  that  perfect  justice,  which  is 
what  it  is,  because  it  is  forever  associated  with 
infinite  mercy  and  love,  as  well  as  with  infinite 
wisdom  and  might!  Or  more  briefly — All  puri- 
fied and  loving  hearts  to  the  rescue! 


IX 
JESUS  THE  REVEALER  OF  THE  FATHER 

The  New  Testament  writers  believed  Jesus 
Christ  to  be,  in  the  supremest  way,  the  Son  of 
God.  Paul,  at  once  the  most  voluminous  and, 
with  one  exception,  the  earliest  among  them,  gave 
expression  to  this  faith  before  he!  had  gone  twenty 
lines  in  his  first  extant  letter  to  a  Christian 
Church.  Congratulating  the  Thessalonians,  he 
told  them  "how,  turning  to  God  from  your  idols, 
you  became  servants  of  the  true  and  living  God, 
and  are  now  awaiting  the  return  from  heaven  of 
his  Son,  whom  he  raised  from  the  dead — Jesus." 
(1  Thess.  1:9,  10.)  They  believed  him  to  be 
God's  Son  in  the  same  way  that  any  man  is  the 
son  of  his  father.  Accordingly  the  gospel  of 
Luke  tells  us  that  before  he  was  conceived  by 
Mary,  she  was  distinctly  notified  of  the  divine 
purpose  that  she  should  become  a  mother  by 
means  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  she  consented,  and 
that  a  little  later,  knowing  herself  to  be  in  a 
mother's  condition,  she  went  some  distance  to 
visit  her  cousin  Elizabeth,  and  was  raised  to  an 
ecstasy  of  joy  by  being  greeted  on  her  arrival  as 
"the  mother  of  my  Lord."  (Luke  1:26-56.) 
Matthew's  gospel  supplements  this  by  telling  us 
136 


JESUS  THE  REVEALER  137 

that  when  her  betrothed  husband  also  became 
aware  of  her  extraordinary  situation,  he,  too,  was 
supernaturally  informed  and  brought  into  the 
same  spirit  of  consecration  to  God's  will  which 
she  had  manifested  from  the  beginning.  (Matt. 
1:18-21.)  The  early  church,  therefore,  looked 
upon  Jesus  as  naturally  the  revealer  of  God  as 
Father.  Since  like  begets  like,  they  believed  that 
he  revealed  God,  first  of  all,  through  his  char- 
acter, and  the  fourth  gospel  represents  Jesus  as 
saying  to  his  eleven  apostles,  just  before  they 
went  with  him  to  Gethsemane:  "He  who  has  seen 
me  has  seen  the  Father."  (Jno.  14:9.) 

Whether  the  church  reasoned  from  the  re- 
splendent holiness  of  the  character  of  Jesus  to  the 
fact  of  his  divine  Sonship,  to  begin  with,  as  might 
be  inferred  from  one  at  least  of  the  gospel  sto- 
ries (Matt.  16:13-17),  or  were  convinced  of  that 
Sonship  rather  by  the  things  recorded  in  Mat- 
thew and  Luke,  to  which  I  have  just  referred,  is 
a  matter  of  little  practical  importance.  In  what- 
ever way  it  was  brought  about,  the  early  church 
was  from  the  beginning  absolutely  convinced  that 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  man,  was  at  the  same  time 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God.  And  its  members 
were  perfectly  responsive  to  the  declaration — 
"No  one  knows  who  the  Son  is,  except  the  Father, 
nor  who  the  Father  is,  except  the  Son  and  those 
to  whom  the  Son  may  choose  to  reveal  him." 
(Luke  10:22.) 

The  distinction  between  revealing  God  as  God, 


138  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

and  revealing  God  as  Father,  should  not  be  for- 
gotten. The  former  revelation  greeted  the  child 
Jesus  in  his  own  home  and  in  the  synagogue  at 
Nazareth.  Every  one  he  met  while  he  was  grow- 
ing up,  was  asserting,  as  his  fathers  had  done 
before  him,  and  as  Mohammedan,  equally  with 
Jew  and  Christian,  asserts  to-day — God  is,  and 
there  is  no  God  besides.  Jesus  received  that  reve- 
lation from  his  fellow-countrymen,  when  it  was 
centuries  old.  They  were  also  acquainted  with 
and  taught  him,  Isaiah's  tender  word  about  God 
as  the  Father  of  the  Israelitish  race.  (Isa.  63: 
16.)  He  was  their  debtor,  not  they  his,  so  far. 
The  things  which  Jesus  brought  to  the  amazed 
attention  of  his  time  were  God's  fatherly  care  for 
the  individual  human  being  down  to  the  very  in- 
fant (Matt.  5  &  6;  Mark  10:13-16),  and  his  be- 
stowal of  his  holy  likeness  upon  believers  in 
Christ  through  a  real  spiritual  begetting,  which 
made  them  his  sons  and  daughters,  whether  they 
were  descendants  of  Israel  or  not.  (Jno.  3:3-8; 
1  Jno.  3:1-10;  Matt.  8:11;  Rom.  4;  Eph.  2:11- 
22.)  And  this  idea  of  the  Divine  Father  is  be- 
coming the  very  core  of  Christian,  teaching  in  our 
own  day. 

Now  in  studying  Jesus  as  the  great  discloser 
of  the  divine  Fatherhood,  and  keeping  in  mind  the 
fact  that  he  revealed  the  Father  partly  through 
his  own  character  and  partly  by  means  of  his 
teaching  concerning  him,  we  may  safely  ask  at 
once  what  phases  of  the  divine  character  he 


JESUS  THE  REVEALER  139 

stressed.  What  impressions  concerning  the  divine 
Father  will  the  New  Testament,  and  particularly 
the  gospels,  make  upon  the  mind  of  the  careful 
reader?  Will  such  a  reader,  looking  upon  Jesus 
as  he  is  to  be  seen  in  these,  and  listening  to  him 
as  he  can  be  heard  through  them,  come  necessarily 
to  regard  the  Father  as  stern  and  severe?  Or 
will  he  be  impressed  rather  by  his  kindness  and 
his  pitying  tenderness?  In  other  words,  are  the 
four  New  Testament  histories  of  Jesus  and  his 
teaching  better  fitted  to  convey  to  the  mind  the 
tremendous  requirements  of  the  infinite  holiness 
which  they  bring  into  view,  than  to  awaken  in 
the  heart  a  humble,  yet  joyful,  confidence  in  the 
infinitely  loving  care,  and  the  forgiving  help  of 
the  God,  whom  Jesus  taught  his  disciples  to  call 
"our  Father?"  If  there  is  any  lack  of  perfect 
balance  in  his  life  and  teaching,  on  which  side  is 
the  greater  weight  to  be  found?  God  is  holy, 
God  is  loving — which  of  these  infinite  facts  did 
Jesus  take  most  pains  to  write  upon  human 
hearts?  Can  we  be  sure,  to  begin  with,  that  if 
he  stressed  one  more  than  he  did  the  other,  it  was 
because  that  one  had  become  obscured,  and  needed 
to  be  drawn  forth  into  clearer  light  once  more? 
Would  any  one  dare  say  that  either  is  in  itself 
of  less  importance  for  us  than  the  other? 

When  we  ask  all  these  questions  we  show  that 
we  are  not  yet  on  the  right  track.  It  can  never 
be  forgotten  that  Jesus  impressed  John  in  such 
a  way  that  he  wrote  down  for  all  time,  not  God 


140  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

is  holiness,  but  "God  is  love."  And  is  not  the 
key-note  of  the  whole  New  Testament  to  be  found 
in  John  3:16?  Love  is  active  good-will,  and 
holiness  is  but  a  phase  of  that.  Holiness  simply 
means  the  absence  from  a  nature  of  all  injurious 
dispositions,  desires  and  purposes,  and  the  pres- 
ence in  it  of  all  helpful  ones;  and  that  condition 
is  just  an  aspect  or  part  of  love  itself.  Holiness 
is  therefore  a  part  of  which  love  is  the  whole,  and 
the  whole  is  forever  greater  than  any  of  its  parts. 
We  reach  the  truth  here  only  when  we  get  John's 
vision,  and  learn  that  to  be  love  is  more  than  to 
be  loving.  Loving  some  persons  may  be  as- 
sociated with  hating  others  (Matt.  5:43-48),  but 
He  who  is  love  can  hate  no  person  whatever.  He 
can  hate  only  things — the  things  which  mar  and 
harm  persons,  or  sin  in  its  various  forms.  When 
we  say  God  is  loving,  we  can  match  that  state- 
ment in  another  direction  by  saying  that  he  is 
holy.  But  "God  is  love"  is  a  statement  that  can 
never  be  matched  until  a  part  can  be  found  which 
is  as  great  as  the  whole  to  which  it  belongs. 

It  was  the  greatness  of  this  revelation  of  Jesus 
Christ  that  made  him  so  hard  to  understand,  in 
both  his  teachings  and  his  life.  Some  found  it 
impossible  to  take  in  the  fact  that  he  could  hate 
no  one — not  even  the  oppressors  of  his  country- 
men. His  very  disciples  seem  never  to  have 
divined,  in  the  days  of  his  flesh,  the  secret  of  his 
steady  refusal  to  look  towards  the  earthly  throne, 
which  they  thought  he  would  some  day  be  com- 


JESUS  THE  REVEALER  141 

pelled  by  circumstances  to  mount.  Such  a  throne 
would  have  meant  war,  and  disguise  the  fact  as 
men  may,  war  is  based  upon  hate.  Every  armed 
conflict  means  either  that  men  want  to  kill  each 
other,  because  they  have  come  to  hate  each  other 
enough  for  that,  without  any  definite  reason  which 
they  can  name,  blindly  and  brutally;  or  that,  be- 
cause one  of  them  stands  in  the  way  of  the  other's 
acquisition  or  enjoyment  of  property,  or  liberty, 
they  have  come  to  hate  each  other  enough  to 
glory  in  hewing  or  shooting  the  souls  out  of  each 
other.  'it  , 

"Hateful  and  hating  one  another,"  and  glory- 
ing in  the  vengeance  they  could  wreak  upon  each 
other,  the  men  of  Christ's  day  could  not  believe 
that  he  meant  them  individually  and  collectively 
to  entirely  dismiss  the  law  of  retaliation,  and 
adopt  the  gentle  method  of  loving  their  enemies, 
doing  good  to  them  that  hated  them  and  praying 
for  those  who  despitefully  used  them  and  per- 
secuted them.  And  when  a  Caiaphas  did  under- 
stand him,  it  was  only,  of  course,  to  hate  him  for 
his  peace  policy  worse,  if  anything,  than  he  al- 
ready hated  the  Roman,  and  advise  his  murder 
under  forms  of  law.  The  coming  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  from  the  Father  upon  Jesus,  in  the  form 
of  a  dove,  at  the  time  of  his  baptism ;  his  im- 
mediate impulsion  by  that  Spirit  into  the  wilder- 
ness, that  he  might  determine  the  lines  along 
which  he  would  move  during  his  public  career; 
and  his  rejection  there  of  every  suggestion  that 


142  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

looked  in  the  direction  of  gathering  the  people 
about  him,  as  they  were,  for  the  founding  of  a 
world-wide  kingdom,  that  would  largely  rely  upon 
the  support  of  murderous  physical  force;  is  the 
New  Testament's  way  of  telling  us  that,  when 
.Jesus  laid  himself  open  to  the  sneer  of  being  a 
peace-at-any-price  man,  and  so  awakened  against 
himself  the  bitterest  malice  of  the  warlike  rulers 
of  his  people,  he  did  it  under  the  guidance  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  that  he  might  show  forth  the 
mind  of  the  Father  in  the  matter.  And  the 
further  New  Testament  stories  which  bring  Jesus 
before  us  as  reproving  Peter  and  healing  the 
wound  he  inflicted,  when  he  drew  his  sword  to  de- 
fend his  master  at  the  time  of  his  betrayal  and 
arrest  (Luke  22:50,  51);  as  informing  Pilate — 
"My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world;  if  my  king- 
dom were  of  this  world,  then  would  my  servants 
fight,  that  I  should  not  be  delivered  to  the  Jews ; 
but  now  is  my  kingdom  not  from  hence"  (Jno. 
18:36)  ;  and  as  even  rejecting  the  thought  of  hav- 
ing twelve  legions  of  angels  put  all  his  blood- 
thirsty persecutors  out  of  action  by  some  sort  of 
spiritual  jiu-jitsu;  show  us  how,  in  the  opinion  of 
his  followers,  Jesus  felt  himself  led  by  the  spirit 
of  his  Father  to  his  first  decision  to  eschew  every- 
thing that  looked  in  the  direction  of  a  compulsion, 
which  did  not  address  itself  to  the  unfettered  in- 
tellect and  conscience.  Under  his  Father  he  was 
king  of  the  truth  and  of  all  who  would  receive  it. 
(Jno.  18:37.)  And  all  who  witnessed  his  in- 


JESUS  THE  REVEALER  143 

ability  to  hate  even  his  enemies,  looked  through 
him  upon  his  father.  (Matt.  5:44-48.) 

The  difficulty  was  that  his  contemporaries  would 
not  believe  it.  They  had  not  known  God  as  love, 
or  universal  Father,  and  did  not  want  to  know 
him  as  such.  They  thought  their  God  as  deep 
a  hater  of  persons  as  themselves,  gloried  in  the 
fact  that  he  was  almighty,  and  were  simply  wait- 
ing for  him  to  make  bare  his  arm  for  the  slaughter, 
which  they  regarded  as  already  overdue.  In  the 
meantime  they  felt  there  was  nothing  else  for  them 
to  do  but  to  prepare  for  this  wholesale  butchery 
by  shedding  the  blood  of  the  one  man  who  most 
of  all  stood  in  the  way  of  it.  (Jno.  11:50;  18:- 
14.) 

If  we  look  in  the  direction  of  the  social  and  re- 
ligious life  of  men,  we  shall  still  see  Jesus  giving 
offense,  on  the  one  hand,  and  unspeakable  com- 
fort on  the  other,  because  he  stood  for  a  love 
that  knew  no  caste  barriers  and  no  depths  of 
sinning  that  were  beyond  its  embrace.  He  went 
so  far  in  this  matter  that  he  fell  under  the  sus- 
picion of  being  short  in  patriotism  and  penetra- 
tion, if  not  also  in  personal  purity.  Confining 
ourselves  to  the  gospel  of  Luke,  we  shall  get  all 
the  light  we  need  on  the  social  characteristics  of 
Jesus.  .The  "righteous"  people  of  the  time  like 
many  of  the  "unco  guid"  of  our  own,  thought  of 
holiness  as  a  moral  superiority  one  of  the  chief 
duties  of  which  was  to  guard  its  own  reputation 
or  sanctity  by  ostracising  those  who  did  not  con- 


144  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

form  to  its  ideals.  This  notion  of  holiness  had 
worked  itself  out  in  a  political  direction,  and 
placed  under  the  social  ban  every  Jew  who  took 
office  as  a  collector  of  taxes  under  the  Roman 
government.  Taking  another  direction  it  had 
ostracised  also  the  fallen  woman,  and  given  her  a 
sort  of  preeminence  among  wrong-doers  by  label- 
ing her  "sinner."  It  may  be  noted,  however,  that 
the  seducer  and  paramour  of  such  a  woman  does 
not  seem  to  have  fallen  under  the  ban  of  this 
holiness  distinctly  enough  to  have  shared  with  her 
either  her  title  or  her  disabilities.  It  was  that 
sort  of  holiness  which  makes  up  for  its  inability 
to  keep  the  man  pure  by  punishing  the  woman  for 
her  inevitable  share  in  his  sin ;  and  who  shall  say 
that  such  a  holiness  has  even  now  disappeared 
from  the  earth?  To  pull  the  sweetness  of  virgin 
purity  down  into  their  own  filth,  and  then  despise 
their  sisters  and  cast  them  out  of  their  places 
in  society  and  the  home,  because  they  are  no 
longer  pure,  has  been  one  of  the  constant  achieve- 
ments of  the  male  members  of  our  race,  in  which 
they  have  not  lacked  the  too  ready  assistance  of 
the  wronged  sex  itself.  The  propriety  of  such 
acts  of  ostracism,  in  view  of  the  eternal  principles 
of  right,  could  scarcely  remain  unchallenged  for- 
ever. It  was  quite  certain  from  the  first  that 
some  one  would  rise  and  ask  what  the  Father  of 
us  all  was  thinking  about  it. 

According  to  Luke,  Jesus  forced  the  issue.     He 
did  it,  to  begin  with,  by  calling  a  tax-gatherer 


JESUS  THE  REVEALER  145 

of  Capernaum,  named  Levi,  to  be  one  of  his  inti- 
mate disciples,  and  by  making  himself  perfectly  at 
home  at  a  feast  which  Levi  immediately  prepared 
for  him  at  his  home,  the  other  guests  at  which 
were  necessarily  tax-gatherers  and  outcasts. 
When  the  inevitable  criticisms  were  voiced,  he 
made  the  obvious  yet  to  them  startling  remark — 
"It  is  not  those  who  are  well  that  need  a  doctor, 
but  those  who  are  ill.  I  have  not  come  to  call 
the  religious,  but  the  outcast,  to  repent."  Later 
a  Pharisee  named  Simon  invited  him  to  a  meal, 
and  while  they  were  still  at  the  table  a  poor  out- 
cast woman  crept  to  his  feet  and  anointed  them 
with  a  costly  perfume,  weeping  over  them  the  while 
the  tender  tears  of  her  contrition,  and  wiping  these 
away  with  her  abundant  hair,  because  of  her 
sense  of  unworthiness,  as  they  fell.  When  Simon 
looked  his  disapproval  of  Jesus  himself,  as  well  as 
of  the  woman,  he  was  taught  that  he  had  been 
ignoring  two  of  the  most  beautiful  things  in  God's 
world — the  forgiveness  He  waits  to  confer  upon 
the  repentant  sinner,  and  the  humble  tender  love 
which  wells  up  from  the  depths  of  such  a  sinner's 
nature  when  that  forgiveness  has  been  consciously 
received.  (Luke  7:36-44.)  On  another  occasion 
when  "the  tax-gatherers  and  the  outcasts  were  all 
drawing  near  to  Jesus  to  listen  to  him,  but  the 
Pharisees  and  the  teachers  of  the  law  found 
fault — 'This  man  always  welcomes  outcasts  and 
takes  meals  with  them'  " ;  he  replied  by  telling 
three  stories,  one  about  a  lost  sheep,  another 


146  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

about  a  lost  coin  and  the  third  about  a  lost  son. 
The  first  of  these  he  concluded  with  the  state- 
ment: "So  I  tell  you,  there  will  be  more  rejoic- 
ing in  Heaven  over  one  outcast  that  repents, 
than  over  ninety-nine  religious  men,  who  have  no 
need  to  repent"  (Luke  15)  ;  the  second  with  the 
like  word:  "So  I  tell  you,  there  is  rejoicing  in 
the  presence  of  God's  angels  over  one  outcast  that 
repents";  while  the  third,  which  we  may  rename 
The  Father  and  His  Two  Sons,  closes  with  the 
last  joyful  word  of  the  father,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  return  home,  in  sorrowing  penitence  and 
humble  confession,  of  the  son  who  had  turned  his 
back  upon  purity  and  thrift,  and  fallen  into  sore 
want  into  a  far  off  land — 

"We  could  but  make  merry  and  rejoice,  for 
here  is  your  brother  who  was  dead,  and  is  alive ; 
who  was  lost  and  is  found." 

What  is  the  gist  of  all  this  teaching  of  Jesus 
but  this?  You  can  never  make  men  and  women 
such  outcasts  but  they  will  still  remain  your 
brothers  and  sisters,  and  still  sons  and  daughters 
to  the  heart  of  the  Father  in  Heaven.  And  no 
one  can  ever  sin  himself,  or  be  cast  by  his  fellows, 
beyond  the  pale  of  omnipresent  and  infinite  love. 

Luke's  additional  story  along  this  same  line  of 
the  social  life  of  his  time — that  of  Zacchaeus — 
can  well  be  left  untold.  We  need  only  remark 
as  we  pass  it  by,  that  throughout  this  teaching  of 
Jesus  about  his  Father,  we  all  but  lose  sight  of 
his  holiness,  in  the  awed  wonder  awakened  by  his 


JESUS  THE  REVEALER  147 

amazing  love.  Not  that  the  former  is  absent, 
but  that  it  takes  its  proper  place  as  a  constituent 
element  of  the  vast  love  itself. 

Religiously,  as  well  as  socially,  Jesus  had  to 
face  perverted  notions  of  holiness.  The  Jewish 
religionist  taught  that  the  divine  holiness  was  an 
exacting  thing,  which  ignored  to  quite  an  extent 
the  every  day  needs  of  men,  that  it  might  make 
them  holy  in  every  minutest  detail  of  their  con- 
duct. As  interpreters  of  this  holiness  the  teach- 
ers of  the  law  multiplied  their  petty  requirements 
till  they  made  that  law  a  tyranny  and  all  life  a 
burden  and  a  vexation,  so  that  men  could  no 
longer  think  of  law  and  love  as  the  inseparable 
things  they  really  are.  The  Sabbath  require- 
ments of  these  legalistic  teachers  were  perhaps 
the  most  irksome  of  all.  No  man  in  crossing  a 
wheat  field  to  attend  the  Sabbath  service  in  his 
synagogue,  could  break  off  a  head  of  the  ripen- 
ing grain  and  eat  the  kernels,  for  that  would  be 
doing  three  or  four  kinds  of  labor — reaping, 
threshing,  winnowing  and  grinding.  They  taught 
also  that  only  danger  to  life  could  justify  any  ef- 
fort on  the  Sabbath  towards  the  relief  or  re- 
moval of  pain  or  disease.  Under  such  conditions 
the  people,  of  course,  soon  learned  how  many 
evasions  could  be  secretly  practised  and  numbers 
of  these  evasions  came  at  length  to  be  provided 
for  by  succeeding  generations  of  lawgivers.  But 
the  moment  Jesus  became  obnoxious  to  the  Jew- 
ish leaders,  they  seem  to  have  made  up  their  minds 


148  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

to  apply  their  Sabbath  laws  in  all  their  remain- 
ing strictness,  at  least,  to  the  work  he  was  do- 
ing. For  his  part  he  saw  in  their  attitude  one  of 
his  great  opportunities,  with  the  result  that  we 
have  in  the  four  gospels  the  stories  of  eight  in- 
teresting occasions  when,  defying  their  malice, 
he  poured  floods  of  light  about  their  thinkings 
and  doings  along  this  line. 

To  begin  with,  he  reminded  them  of  things 
that  had  been  done,  and  of  others  that  were  still 
being  done  with  their  own  consent,  against  law, 
including  the  laws  which  forbade  labor  on  the  Sab- 
bath. David  had  entered  the  ancient  tabernacle 
and  taken  the  sacred  shew-bread  for  himself  and 
his  military  followers.  A  man,  with  but  one 
sheep,  might  rescue  it  from  a  pit  on  the  Sabbath, 
such  was  the  recognized  value  of  property.  On 
that  day,  too,  oxen  and  asses  were  led  out  to 
watering  places,  that  they  might  not  suffer  from 
thirst,  and  any  man  might  pull  his  boy  or  his  ox 
out  of  a  well  and  so  save  him  from  perishing. 
Clearly,  therefore,  the  Sabbath  law  knew  certain 
reasonable  exceptions,  and  the  only  question 
remaining  to  be  dealt  with  was  that  of  the  prin- 
ciples upon  which  these  exceptions  could  be  deter- 
mined. One  of  these,  he  went  on  to  assert,  was 
the  principle  of  mercy  and  good-will,  and  the 
Sabbath  institution  itself  represented  that,  for 

"The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man 
for  the  Sabbath;  so  that  the  Son  of  Man  (the 
man  of  mercy  and  love)  is  lord  even  of  the  Sab- 


JESUS  THE  REVEALER  149 

bath,"  and  must  be  free  to  exercise  his  judgment 
as  to  what  helpful  deeds  should  be  done  on  that 
day.  And  he  would  not  be  likely  to  leave  a  hu- 
man being,  throughout  a  Sabbath,  in  a  condition 
of  peril  or  suffering  from  which  he  would  rescue 
a  brute;  because  the  cry  of  a  man  always  repre- 
sents a  worth  that  can  never  be  found  in  any 
beast. 

There  was  again  the  fact  that  religious  rites 
were  performed  on  the  Sabbath,  though  they  in- 
volved much  labor ;  and  the  male  child  that  reached 
his  eighth  day  on  a  Sabbath,  was  circumcised  with- 
out delay,  that  the  law  on  that  matter  might  be 
honored  to  the  utmost.  If  so  much  was  done  to 
satisfy  law,  how  much  might  be  done  to  satisfy 
love — the  love  of  the  infinite  Father?  Along 
these  lines,  he  added — "My  Father  works  to  this 
very  hour,  and"  that  is  why  "I  work  also"  along 
these  lines.  I  follow  my  Father  to  show  you 
what  he  is  like.  My  Father  is  not  Law  but  Love, 
and  because  he  is  love,  the  laws  he  lays  down  are 
never  to  fetter,  but  always  to  guide  into  true 
liberty  and  happiness  those  whom  he  has  made  to 
be  his  own  sons  and  daughters. 

One  might  lay  beside  all  this  teaching  of  Jesus, 
as  it  comes  to  us  from  the  first  century,  much 
more  besides  of  what  he  is  reported  to  have  said 
and  done  as  the  Son  and  revealer  of  the  Father. 
But  one  further  word  of  his  own  and  another  of 
Paul's  must  suffice.  His  own  is  this — 

"The  Father  is  greater  than  I." 


150  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

It  was  never  in  the  mind  of  the  apostles  that 
the  Son  of  God  became  a  man  to  make  himself 
the  center  of  human  thought  and  worship.  Their 
conviction  was  that  Jesus  no  more  purposed  to 
assume  that  position,  than  that  a  woman — his 
own  mother — should  be  lifted  into  the  place  of 
pitying  tenderness  and  helpful,  gracious  medi- 
atorship  belonging  to  himself.  To  them  he  was, 
far  beyond  and  above  all  others,  the  revealer  of 
God,  and  came  that  man  might  through  him  en- 
ter into  such  an  understanding  of  God,  the  Fa- 
ther of  all,  as  would  eventually  make  all  further 
effort  of  his  on  their  account  wholly  unneces- 
sary. His  work  as  a  man  was,  in  their  view,  to 
have  an  end  as  definite  as  was  its  beginning  in 
the  manger  at  Bethlehem,  or  at  the  Jordan, 
where  John  baptized  him  and  he  began  to  attract 
disciples.  Consequently  we  have  Paul's  word  in 
his  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians — "Then  will 
come  the  end — when  he  surrenders  the  kingdom 
to  his  God  and  Father,  having  overthrown  all 
other  rule  and  all  other  authority  and  power 
and  when  everything  has  been  placed 
under  him,  the  Son  will  place  himself  under  God 
who  placed  everything  under  him,  that  God  may 
be  all  in  all!"  (1  Cor.  15:24-28.) 

If  the  New  Testament  can  be  trusted,  the  the- 
ology Jesus  Christ  came  to  establish  and  perfect 
is  theocentric,  and  has  the  Father  as  its  chief  ob- 
ject of  love  and  worship,  with  the  Son  as  his 
greatest  Revealer;  and  the  purpose  of  the  Son's 


JESUS  THE  REVEALER  151 

mission  was  that  of  bringing  all  men  at  length  into 
the  place  where  they  would  so  know  and  enjoy 
God  in  his  Fatherhood,  as  no  longer  to  need 
either  revealer  or  mediator.  That  creed  of  one 
article — "I  believe  in  God  through  Jesus  Christ" 
suggested  by  Dr.  Denny  for  the  uniting  of  the 
scattered  fragments  of  a  dismembered  Christen- 
dom, is  a  good  creed,  because  itsi  God  is — 

"The  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord, 
the  all-merciful  Father"  (2  Cor.  1:3),  the  "one 
God  and  Father  of  all — the  God  who  is  over  all, 
pervades  all,  and  is  in  all."  (Eph.  4:6.) 


X 

THE  KINGDOM  AND  CHURCH  OF  JESUS 

A  study  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  or  of  Heaven, 
of  which  several  New  Testament  writers  make 
Jesus  the  head,  can  be  best  approached  perhaps 
through  Paul's  affirmations  touching  political 
rulers  in  general.  He  declares  in  the  most  em- 
phatic manner  that  these  hold  office  by  divine  ap- 
pointment. They  are  God's  ministers  or  serv- 
ants appointed  to  inflict  his  punishments  upon 
those  who  do  wrong.  They  are  God's  officers 
devoting  themselves  to  this  special  work.  Ad- 
dressing the  church  to  which  he  is  writing  he  asks 
its  members  a  question  which  he  immediately  an- 
swers for  them.  "Do  you  want  to  have  no  rea- 
son to  fear  the  authorities?  Then  do  what  is 
good,  and  you  will  win  their  praise.  Therefore 
he  who  sets  himself  against  the  authorities  (by 
doing  evil)  is  resisting  God's  appointment,  and 
those  who  resist  will  bring  a  judgment  upon 
themselves."  (Rom.  13:1-7.) 

The  point  unmistakably  involved  here  is  that 
all  human  government  is  theocratic,  and  that  the 
laws  of  every  country  are  in  the  main  the  right- 
eous laws  of  God  himself.  And  this  point  is 
well  taken.  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery, 

152 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  JESUS          153 

thou  shalt  not  steal,  thou  shalt  do  no  murder 
were  as  divine  at  Rome  as  at  Jerusalem,  and, 
upon  the  whole,  as  well  enforced  perhaps ;  for  was 
not  Jerusalem,  the  bloody  city  from  of  old,  al- 
ways the  murderess  of  the  most  righteous,  includ- 
ing "the  Righteous  One"  himself? 

Paul  saw  that  the  world  of  our  humanity  is 
God's  in  spite  of  "the  Rulers  of  the  Powers  of 
the  Air — the  various  Powers  of  Evil  that  hold 
sway  in  the  darkness  around  us."  (Eph.  2:2; 
6:12.)  It  was  his  faith  in  God  as  supreme  Ruler 
which  made  him  so  optimistic  touching  prayer 
and  the  ultimate  result  of  all  brave  battling  for 
the  truth  in  the  individual  life,  in  the  Church  and 
in  the  world  at  large. 

Another  thing  which  Paul  saw  plainly  was  that 
the  world  could  and  would  become  Christ's 
because  it  was  already  God's  and  Jesus  was  God's 
anointed  and  well-beloved  Son.  No  one  can  be- 
stow what  is  not  in  his  possession,  but  all  that  is 
actually  his  he  can  dispose  of  as  he  pleases,  king- 
doms and  thrones  being  no  exceptions.  Paul  rep- 
resents Jesus  as  already  reigning  on  the  earth 
in  his  day,  and  God  as  continually  adding  to  the 
number  of  his  subjects.  Accordingly  one  of  his 
words  to  the  Colossiansi  was — 

"God  has  rescued  us  from  the  tyranny  of  Dark- 
ness, and  has  removed  us  into  the  kingdom  of 
his  Son."  (Col.  1 :3.) 

This  tyranny  of  darkness  which  existed,  and 
still  exists,  under  the  rule  of  God  is  the  despotism 


154  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

of  ignorance,  self-will  and  ill-will,  which  the  ethnic 
religions  and  governmental  codes  could  but  par- 
tially dissipate  and  overcome.  Further  rescue  was 
possible  only  through  further  enlightenment  as  to 
right  conduct  and  disposition,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  through  the  mighty  persuasiveness  of  an  im- 
measurable love,  on  the  other.  But  God  made 
both  stand  forth  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  so  made 
that  life  (including  the  death  on  the  cross)  both 
illuminating  and  transforming  for  all  who  should 
be  brought  within  the  sphere  of  its  influence.  As 
the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  was  preached  to 
men  they  came  under  law  to  Christ,  and  experi- 
enced at  once  a  change  so  vital  that  they  called 
it  now  a  passing  out  of  death  into  life,  and  now  a 
new  birth  or  re-creation.  Had  it  been  possible  at 
any  time  for  men  to  comprehend  the  whole  law  of 
the  life  of  Jesus,  and  to  realize  all  the  power  and 
sweetness  of  the  love  of  God  set  forth  in  him,  the 
race  would  speedily  have  been  conformed  to  his 
likeness  in  every  respect.  But  we  are  slow-learn- 
ing beings  and  still  far  from  the  goal,  and  only  the 
smaller  portion  of  our  race  has  been  removed  into 
the  kingdom  of  God's  Son  at  all  as  yet.  The  ty- 
ranny of  darkness  is  visibly  weakening,  however, 
as  the  kingdom  of  the  Son  widens  and  strengthens. 
In  preparing  men  for  their  first  introduction  to  his 
Christ,  God  moved  with  a  deliberation  waymarks 
of  which  we  find  in  the  man  of  the  Neanderthal 
skull  and  the  man  of  the  cranium,  femur  and  two 
molar  teeth  found  by  DuBois  in  Java — a  delib- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  JESUS          155 

eration  which  consumed  millions  of  years,  it  may 
be,  and  we  need  not  wonder  if  after  nineteen  short 
centuries  the  student  of  God's  work  of  bringing 
men  wholly  under  law  to  his  Christ,  must  satisfy 
himself  with  simply  reporting  progress. 

A  word  of  Paul  to  the  Philippians  should  be 
linked  on  here — "Our  commonwealth,  or  the  state 
of  which  we  are  citizens,  is  in  heaven."  (Phil. 
3:20.)  For  it  beautifully  supplements  that 
word  to  the  Romans  with  which  this  chapter  be- 
gan. Heaven  is  the  state  of  which  Rome  was 
but  a  rude  province,  incomplete  and  sometimes 
wrong  in  its  laws,  because  of  the  darkness  in  which 
it  was  still  so  largely  enshrouded,  but  a  province 
under  divine  rule  nevertheless.  Its  code  of  laws 
needed  revision,  correction,  and  many  additions. 
To  this  end  the  Son  of  God  had  come  as  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  the  Messiah,  had  finished  the  work 
which  it  was  his  to  do  while  here  in  the  flesh  as 
the  light  of  the  world,  had  passed  again  into  the 
invisible  heaven  from  which  he  had  come  forth, 
and  was  now  introducing  growing  numbers  on 
earth  to  the  consciousness  of  their  direct  associa- 
tion with  the  King  of  heaven  itself  as  his  sub- 
jects. Out  of  this  illuminating  consciousness  a 
sense  of  new  duties  was  arising,  which  would,  as 
Paul  believed,  secure  the  needed  changes  in  the 
codes  of  earth.  In  the  meantime  these  codes  of 
earth  were  themselves  heavenly  in  their  origin 
and  authority  as  far  as  they  were  in  harmony  with 
the  law  of  Christ,  and  every  man  who  knew 


156  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

himself  a  citizen  of  heaven  was  on  that  very 
ground  obligated  to  a  life  of  the  most  whole- 
hearted obedience,  within  these  limits,  to  earthly 
rulers  of  whatever  name.  "For,"  to  quote  from 
Romans  again,  "they  are  God's  servants  ap- 
pointed for  your  good.  You  are  bound,  there- 
fore, to  obey  as  a  matter  of  conscience.  This, 
too,  is  why  you  pay  taxes." 

There  are  no  mystifications  here.  Earth  is 
literally  a  province  of  heaven,  or  a  set  of  such 
provinces,  if  it  is  viewed  nationally.  God  is  the 
great  King,  every  righteous  law  is  his  wherever 
it  is  found,  and  hearty  obedience  to  these  laws  is 
obedience  to  him  as  true  and  acceptable  as  any 
that  is  rendered  to  him  in  heaven  itself.  (Acts 
10:34,  35.)  If  therefore  one  is  to  define  the 
kingdom  of  God  as  it  is  represented  here  upon  the 
earth,  he  must  say,  at  the  least,  that  it  includes 
God's  government  of  men  in  their  every  day  af- 
fairs through  the  agency  of  human  rulers.  And 
if  he  is  asked  how  the  kingdom  is  to  come  or  be  ex- 
tended, his  answer  will  not  be  that  its  territory  is 
to  be  increased  until  it  embraces  the  whole  earth, 
for  it  has  done  that  from  the  beginning,  but  that 
its  coming  or  extension  must  be  effected  through 
an  increase  of  the  knowledge  of  God  and  his  right- 
eous loving  will,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  dis- 
position and  power  to  do  that  will,  on  the  other. 
The  light  must  continue  to  scatter  the  dark- 
ness until  the  human  conscience  is  fully  in- 
formed, and  the  dispositions  and  energies  of 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  JESUS          157 

men  are  completely  rectified  and  empowered. 
Now  the  New  Testament  assigns  to  Jesus 
all  but  the  supreme  place  in  the  accomplishment 
of  this  end.  His  position,  with  its  authority  and 
power  and  glory  is  next  to  God's,  and  far  above 
that  of  any  other  that  can  be  named.  He  is  the 
great  intercessor  and  the  "one  mediator."  So 
exalted  did  he  appear  in  the  eyes  of  his  noblest 
first  followers  and  apostles  that  at  times  they 
almost  lost  the  fact  of  his  humanity  in  the  glory 
of  his  divinity.  In  comparison  with  him  they 
saw  themselves  dwarfed  and  weak  and  sinful.  To 
know  him  increasingly,  and  through  the  trans- 
forming ministry  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  his  steady 
application  of  that  knowledge  of  heart  and  life, 
to  grow  ever  more  like  him,  was  their  most  blessed 
hope  and  their  loftiest  aim.  Still  they  were  not 
unaware  either  of  his  humanity  itself  and  of  the 
secondary  place  in  the  great  undertaking  for 
which  it  fitted,  and  to  which,  at  the  same  iime,  it 
confined  him.  They  believed  that  his  work  was 
that  of  expressing  divinity  in  the  terms  of  human- 
ity. Accordingly  when  Paul  presents  him  as  the 
"One  Mediator"  he  presents  him  also  as  "the 
man  Christ  Jesus,  who  gave  himself  as  a  ransom 
on  behalf  of  all  men."  (1  Tim.  2:5.)  And  the 
writer  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews  insists  that 
his  fitness  for  the  office  he  holds  as  high-priestly 
mediator  arises  out  of  the  intensity  of  his  suf- 
ferings and  the  consequent  force  and  quickness 
of  his  human  sympathies.  (Heb.  2:5-18;  4:14- 


158  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

16.)  These  writers  teach  also  that  his  conquest 
of  the  world  is  not  being  wrought  out  so  much  by 
him  as  for  him.  The  placing  of  everything  un- 
der Jesus  is  the  placing  of  everything  under  man 
(Heb.  2:8),  and  this,  according  to  Paul  was  the 
work  of  the  Father — 

"For  he  must  reign  until  God  has  put  all  his 
enemies  under  his  feet  .  .  .  And  when  every- 
thing has  been  placed  under  him,  the  Son  will 
place  himself  under  God  who  placed  everything 
under  him."  (I  Cor.  15 :25,  28)  ;  uttering  as  he 
does  so  his  final — 

"See  here  am  I  and  the  children  whom  God  gave 
me  (Heb.  2:13). 

"That  God  may  be  all  in  all."      (1  Cor.  15 :28.) 

The  Hebrew  mind  found  it  quite  impossible  to 
raise  the  God-man  to  the  height  of  pure  divinity. 
The  second  person  of  their  Trinity  was  by  his 
very  constitution  a  limited  being  and  in  that  re- 
spect a  lesser  being  than  the  first  and  the  third. 
According  to  John's  gospel  Jesus  himself  was  no 
exception  to  this  rule,  for  it  reports  him  as  teach- 
ing at  the  last  that  his  disciples  were  to  await 
the  coming  of  a  greater  one,  the  Holy  Spirit,  who 
was  to  make  his  words  and  his  whole  earthly  ca- 
reer, as  these  should  be  proclaimed  by  them, 
mightily  effective  for  the  transformation  of  men 
both  individually  and  socially.  They  were  to 
find  that  through  his  humanity  he  had  simply  be- 
come rather  the  chief  instrument  than  the  might- 
iest agent  of  the  Father,  and  it  was  as  such  an 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  JESUS          159 

instrument  that  all  power  had  been  given  to  him. 
Whether  in  heaven  or  on  earth  men  would  find 
in  him  their  highest  ideal  of  devotion  to  the  Fa- 
ther's will,  and  would  through  the  Holy  Spirit's 
use  of  that  ideal  be  at  length  fully  conformed  to 
his  image.  The  Father  would  thus  by  degrees 
make  his  rule  world-wide  and  all  pervasive.  The 
word  of  the  Father  to  him  was — 

"Sit  thou  at  my  right  hand  until  I  put  thy  ene- 
mies as  a  stool  for  thy  feet."  (Heb.  1:13.) 
So,  "After  he  had  offered  one  sacrifice  for 
sins,  which  should  serve  for  all  time,  he 
took  his  seat  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  and  has 
since  then  been  waiting  for  his  enemies  to  be  put 
as  a  stool  for  his  feet."  (Heb.  10:12,  13.) 

A  further  thought  of  Paul  is  that  this  King- 
dom of  Christ  will  endure  only  until  it  is  com- 
pleted, and  that  then  it  will  be  finally  merged  in 
the  universal  kingdom  of  the  Father.  But  this 
has  already  been  so  distinctly  indicated  that  it 
needs  no  elaboration.  Still  it  cannot  be  safely 
forgotten  by  those  who  wish  a  complete  view  of 
the  subject.  The  kingdom  of  Christ  exists  for 
the  sake  of  bringing  men  fully  to  God  and  when 
this  end  is  reached  there  will  be  no  further  need 
for  its  continuance. 

It  may  also  be  observed  here  that  the  New 
Testament  writers  present  other  phases  of  the 
Kingdom  besides  that  of  an  earthly  society  con- 
formed to  the  law  and  spirit  of  Christ.  They 
viewed  it  as  extending  far  enough  into  the  invis- 


160  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

ible  to  include  the  most  distant  abode  of  men  who 
are  no  longer  here  in  the  flesh.  Falling  under 
the  deadly  hail  of  stones  Stephen  prayed: — 

"Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit"  (Acts  7 :59)  ; 
Paul  declared  to  the  Philippians : — 

"My  own  desire  is  to  depart  and  be  with  Christ, 
for  this  would  be  far  better"  (Phil.  1 :23)  ;  and  the 
writer  of  the  Revelation  of  John  heard  him  pro- 
claiming: 

"I  hold  the  keys  of  the  grave  and  of  the  place 
of  the  dead."  (Rev.  1:18.)  They  believed  in 
Jesus  as  Savior  and  Judge  of  the  dead  as  well  as 
the  living,  and  that  all  the  race  of  mankind  was 
embraced  within  the  bounds  of  his  rule. 

A  study  of  the  gospels  will  reveal  the  fact  that 
it  was  his  kingdom  as  distinguished  from  his 
church,  or  as  some  may  prefer  to  say,  his  king- 
dom as  including  his  church,  which  was  constantly 
in  the  thought  of  Jesus.  Matthew  alone  reports 
Jesus  as  having  named  his  church  all.  He  tells 
us  of  two  occasions  on  which  he  did  it,  and  says 
that  on  the  first  of  these  occasions  he  brought 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  into  most  direct  associa- 
tion with  it. 

On  coming  into  the  neighborhood  of  Cesarea 
Philippi  Jesus  asked  his  disciples  this  question: 

"Who  do  people  say  that  the  son  of  man 
is?" 

"Some  say  John  the  Baptist,"  they  answered. 
"Others,  however,  say  that  he  is  Elijah,  while  oth- 
ers again  say  Jeremiah,  or  one  of  the  prophets.'  " 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  JESUS          161 

"But  you,"  he  said,  "who  do  you  say  that  I  am?" 
And  Simon  answered:  "You  are  the  Christ,  the 
Son  of  the  living  God." 

"Blessed  are  you,  Simon,  son  of  Jonah,"  Jesus 
replied.  "For  no  human  being  has  revealed  this 
to  you,  but  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven.  Yes, 
and  I  say  to  you  your  name  is  Peter,  a  Rock,  and 
on  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church,  and  the  Pow- 
ers of  the  Place  of  Death  shall  not  prevail  over  it. 
I  will  give  you  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven."  (Matt.  16:13-18.) 

It  can  scarcely  be  denied  that  these  words  in- 
dicate the  distinction  between  his  church  and  his 
kingdom  which  existed  in  the  mind  of  Jesus.  And 
we  may  quite  safely  assume  that  this  distinction 
is  the  one  which  was  before  the  mind  of  Paul  when 
he  wrote  Romans  13:1-6,  from  which  I  have 
drawn  some  conclusions  at  the  beginning  of  this 
chapter.  He  asserted  that  the  state  is  a  di- 
vine institution  as  truly  as  the  church,  and  con- 
sequently that  its  righteous  laws;  are  to  be  obeyed 
as  the  very  laws  of  God.  He  did  not  there  touch 
upon  the  fact  that  through  human  ignorance  and 
sin  church  and  state  alike  were  marked,  and 
would  long  be  marked,  by  both  imperfection  and 
wrong.  But  elsewhere  he  emphasized  the  limita- 
tions of  the  church  and  taught  its  members  to 
look  forward  to  a  time  in  which  at  length  a  gen- 
eration would  arise  that  would  "reach  the  com- 
plete manhood — the  full  standard  of  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  Christ."  (Eph.  4:13.) 


162  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Paul  saw  that  the  primitive  Christian  church 
found  the  Roman  state  guiding  men  along  the  lines 
of  the  divine  righteousness  in  their  every  day  ac- 
tivities and  that  the  first  business  of  that  church 
was  to  give  the  world  correct  ideas  of  God  and  his 
worship  and  lead  men  through  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ  into  lives  of  active  obedience  toward  God 
and  of  positive  good-will  towards  each  other. 
The  church  was  in  this  way  to  produce  at  one  and 
the  same  time  the  highest  possible  order  of  wor- 
shipers or  religionists  and  the  best  possible  class 
of  citizens,  and  to  go  on  with  its  task  until  per- 
fection was  attained  in  both  church  and  state. 
The  work  had  begun  and  would  proceed  to  the 
end  in  obedience  to  Christ,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
with  his  character  and  spirit  as  its  rule  and  in- 
spiration, on  the  other.  And  since  all  men  were 
eventually  to  be  taken  up  into  the  movement  and 
fully  conformed  to  its  life  and  its  law,  the  result- 
ing religious  and  political  institutions  would  be 
Christ's — the  church  of  Christ  thus  producing 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  among  men,  growing 
steadily  itself  and  securing  a  steady  growth  for 
the  kingdom.  This  was  the  inspiring  vision  of 
these  earliest  followers  of  Jesus.  We  cannot 
doubt  that  if  the  apostles  found  their  way 
into  India  and  China,  they  regarded  the  politi- 
cal rulers  of  these  lands  as  God's  ministers  in  the 
same  way  as  they  had  those  of  the  Roman  empire 
in  which  they  had  been  brought  up,  and  labored  to 
produce  by  means  of  their  preaching  of  Christ 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  JESUS          163 

not  only  the  same  sort  of  worshipers,  but  also 
the  same  sort  of  citizens  as  before,  and  that  with- 
out any  reference  to  the  various  forms  of  govern- 
ment then  existing  in  those  lands.  These  were 
minor  things  and  they  left  them  to  undergo  such 
modifications  as  the  new  conditions  they  were  seek- 
ing to  produce  might  require  from  time  to  time. 
At  the  same  time,  however,  they  were  so  far  from 
being  blind  to  the  need  of  improvement  every- 
where that  they  looked  joyfully  forward  to  the 
passing  away  of  all,  whether  religious  or  politi- 
cal, that  could  be  shaken,  and  to  the  complete  tri- 
umph of  that  kingdom  which  cannot  be  shaken, 
which  they  had  already  received  as  its  citizens. 
And  they  rejoiced  all  the  more  because  it  was  in 
obedience  to  the  voice  of  their  God  that  unstable 
and  imperfect  things  were  to  disappear.  (Heb. 
12:26-28.) 

One  need  not  pause  to  ask  whether  Jesus  or 
his  apostles  ever  dreamed  of  some  one  form  of 
government,  or  some  definite  set  of  laws,  to  which 
nothing  could  be  added,  and  from  which  nothing 
could  be  taken  away.  It  may  well  be  that  perfec- 
tion and  variety  will  never  be  found  incompati- 
ble with  each  other  in  connection  with  God's  gov- 
ernment of  men,  any  more  than  it  is  in  connection 
with  their  personal  characteristics  under  his  cre- 
ative hand.  Not  a  perfection  of  uniformity  but 
the  perfection  of  adaptation  seems  to  be  one  end 
of  the  ways  of  God.  The  Christian's  God  is  not 
the  God  of  monotony. 


164  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

We  have  now  seen  how  and  why  the  world  of 
mankind  is  becoming  the  kingdom,  as  well  as  the 
church,  of  Christ,  and  we  may  go  on  to  note  the 
manner  in  which  Jesus  himself  is  reported  to  have 
talked  on  the  matter.  Our  material  is  abundant. 
We  are  told  that  when  Jesus  urged  upon  Nico- 
demus  the  necessity  of  the  new  birth,  or  birth  from 
above,  the  argument  he  pressed  home  upon  the 
intellect  and  conscience  of  that  member  of  the 
Sanhedrin  was  the  deeply  spiritual  character  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  which  John  the  Baptist  had 
been  preaching  for  months.  It  was  in  view  of  the 
holy  humility  which  this  kingdom  demanded  that 
Jesus  insisted  upon  the  birth  by  water  as  well  as 
by  the  Spirit  in  this  case.  Nicodemus  was  in- 
formed that  unless  he  ceased  trusting  in  his  Jew- 
ish descent  or  his  high  standing  among  men,  and 
publicly  confessed  his  sins  and  his  need  of  cleans- 
ing from  them  in  the  manner  then  prescribed  by 
John,  he  would  never  see  the  kingdom.  The  bap- 
tism itself  was  a  symbol.  But  it  was  also  a  test 
which  the  Pharisees  and  the  Students  of  the  Law 
rejected,  and  so  frustrated  God's  purpose  in  re- 
gard to  them.  (Luke  7:30.)  Undoubtedly  this 
purpose  was  that  these  natural  leaders  of  the 
Jewish  people  should  be  first  in  their  recognition 
of  Jesus  as  the  anointed  head  of  the  coming 
kingdom,  and  foremost  in  the  work  of  pushing 
that  kingdom  towards  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Je- 
sus warned  Nicodemus  that  the  test  was  not  there 
in  vain,  and  that  if  he  refused  to  submit  to  it,  he 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  JESUS          165 

would  have  to  bear  the  consequences  in  self-ex- 
clusion from  the  kingdom. 

It  may  be  as  well  to  assert  here  that  no  at- 
tempt to  import  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  as 
the  phrase  was  used  by  Jesus,  the  idea  of  a  place 
somewhere  in  the  invisible  can  ever  permanently 
succeed.  Its  only  invisibility  arose  out  of  the 
fact  that  it  found  its  place  at  the  beginning  in 
the  secret  abodes  of  Christ-like  character,  pur- 
pose and  possibility.  The  kingdom  Jesus  had  in 
mind  was  that  earthly  one  which  he  came  to  es- 
tablish and  carry  to  its  consummation.  "The 
field  is  the  world."  "The  wheat  or  people  of  the 
kingdom"  are  the  good  among  men,  while  "the 
tares  are  the  wicked."  (Matt.  13:38,  39.) 

The  parables  of  the  kingdom  found  in  the  thir- 
teenth chapter  of  Matthew  show  it  in  three  of  its 
phases.  First  we  see  it  seeking  its  subjects 
among  men.  Then  we  see  men  seeking  it  as  a 
thing  of  surpassing  value.  And  finally  we  see  it 
choosing  or  rejecting  men  in  view  of  their  good 
or  evil  characters.  In  harmony  with  all  this  the 
burden  of  John  the  Baptist's  preaching  was  the 
absolute  necessity  of  repentance  for  all  who  wished 
the  privilege  of  being  its  subjects  or  citizens. 
And  when  John  was  thrown  into  prison  Jesus  and 
his  disciples  continued  to  utter  the  same  word. 
To  seek  the  kingdom  of  God  was  also  to  seek  his 
righteousness  and  its  accompaniments,  peace  and 
joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Jesus  put  upon  the  lips  of  his  praying  disci- 


166  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

pies  no  petition  on  behalf  of  the  church,  but  he 
most  definitely  asked  them  to  pray  "Thy  kingdom 
come.  Thy  will  be  done — ori  earth,  as  in  heaven." 
He  emphasized  the  obligations  of  citizenship  and 
insisted  that  no  amount  of  scrupulous  churchman- 
ship  could  be  accepted  in  the  place  of  fidelity  in 
the  discharge  of  these.  Tithing  mint  and  fennel 
and  carraway  seed  was  not  to  be  neglected,  but 
justice,  mercy  and  good  faith  were  weightier  mat- 
ters of  the  Law.  Washing  the  hands  before  eat- 
ing was  of  little  account,  but  honoring  parents 
was  a  fundamental  duty  of  citizenship,  and  to 
make  a  way  of  escape  from  it  in  the  name  of  re- 
ligion was  to  imperil  the  life  of  the  nation  by  call- 
ing down  upon  it  the  wrath  of  God.  (Mark  7 : 
10:13.) 

The  realization  of  the  kingdom  of  God  upon 
earth  under  his  Christ  required  a  holy  and  right- 
eous citizenship.  This  sort  of  citizenship  should 
have  characterized  the  Jewish  people.  But  in- 
stead they  compelled  Jesus  to  denounce  them  as 
tenants  of  a  vineyard,  who  had  come  to  regard 
themselves  as  so  securely  in  possession  that  they 
could  safely  refuse  to  make  the  returns  agreed 
upon,  and  even  beat  or  kill  all,  including  his  own 
Son,  whom  the  king  sent  to  remonstrate. 

"  'And  that  I  tell  you',  continued  Jesus,  'is 
why  the  Kingdom  of  God  will  be  taken  from  you 
and  given  to  a  nation  that  does  produce  the 
fruit  of  the  Kingdom.'"  (Matt.  21:43.) 

This  new  people  had  to  be  produced  through 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  JESUS          167 

the  preaching  of  the  gospel  of  Christ.  Agree- 
able to  this  fact  is  the  language  of  the  great  com- 
mission. 

"Therefore  go  and  make  disciples  of  all  the  na- 
tions .  .  .  teaching  them  to  lay  to  heart 
all  the  commands  that  I  have  given  them." 
(Matt.  28:19.) 

In  brief  the  great  earthly  work  of  the  Church 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  that  of  supplying  the  Kingdom 
of  God  with  subjects,  and  of  inspiring  these  with 
the  highest  possible  ideals,  until  at  length  the 
whole  race  has  been  led  up  into  all  Christliness  in 
its  varied  pursuits  and  activities.  The  Church  of 
Christ  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Christ,  which  is  the  New  Testament  Kingdom  of 
God  and  of  Heaven. 

In  the  chapter  which  follows  we  shall  see  what 
Jesus  regarded  as  properly  his  church,  and  what 
that  church  compelled  him  to  do. 


XI 
JESUS  THE  REDEEMER  OF  HIS  CHURCH 

According  to  the  New  Testament,  the  idea  with 
which  Jesus  began  his  public  career 'differed  from 
the  Messianic  expectations  of  his  people  at  one 
point  only.  They  were  looking  for  political  de- 
liverance rather  than  spiritual,  and  so  were  filled 
with  visions  of  successful  statecraft  and  martial 
valor;  while  he  set  out  to  achieve  spiritual  free- 
dom for  them,  leaving  such  political  results  to 
follow  as  it  might  please  the  Father  to  grant. 

The  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  which  was  upon 
him  had  brought  him  safely  through  the  strug- 
gle of  his  initial  temptations ;  and  would  not  that 
same  power  do  all  that  was  necessary  towards  the 
correction  of  false  ideas  and  wrong  attitudes  in 
the  people  as  a  whole?  With  this  work  accom- 
plished the  nation  would  be  the  true  church  of 
God  and  his  chosen  evangelizing  agency  for  the 
enlightenment  and  salvation  of  all  the  world  be- 
sides. Had  not  this  glorious  movement  kindled 
the  consecrated  imaginations  of  Micah  and  Isaiah 
centuries  before?  And  surely  what  the  prophets 
foresaw  would  prove  no  phantom.  Micah  had 
said — 

"But  in  the  latter  days  it  shall  come  to  pass 
168 


JESUS  THE  REDEEMER  169 

that  the  mountain  of  the  Lord's  house  shall  be 
established  in  the  top  of  the  mountains,  and  it 
shall  be  exalted  above  the  hills ;  and  peoples  shall 
flow  unto  it.  And  many  nations  shall  go  and 
say,  Come  ye,  and1  let  us  go  up  to  the  mountain  of 
the  Lord,  and  to  the  house  of  the  God  of  Jacob ; 
and  he  will  teach  us  of  his  ways,  and  we  will  walk 
in  his  paths:  for  out  of  Zion  shall  go  forth  the 
law,  and  the  word  of  the  Lord  from  Jerusalem." 
And  Isaiah  had  pictured  the  same  magnificent 
future  of  spiritual  Israel  in  words  no  less  glow- 
ing, placing  in  the  foreground  one  splendid  per- 
sonality— "And  there  shall  come  forth  a  shoot  out 
of  the  stock  of  Jesse,  and  a  branch  out  of  its 
roots  shall  bear  fruit:  and  the  spirit  of  the  Lord 
shall  rest  upon  him,  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  un- 
derstanding, the  spirit  of  counsel  and  might,  the 
spirit  of  knowledge  and  the  fear  of  the  Lord; 
and  his  delight  shall  be  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord; 
and  he  shall  not  judge  after  the  sight  of  his  eyes, 
neither  reprove  after  the  hearing  of  his  ears ; 
but  with  righteousness  shall  he  judge  the  poor, 
and  reprove  with  equity  for  the  meek  of  the  earth : 
and  he  shall  smite  the  earth  with  the  rod  of  his 
mouth,  and  with  the  breath  of  his  lips  shall  he 
slay  the  wicked.  And  righteousness  shall  be  the 
girdle  of  his  loins  and  faithfulness  the  girdle  of 
his  reins.  And  the  wolf  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb, 
and  the  leopard  shall  lie  down  with  the  kid:  and 
the  calf  and  young  lion  and  the  fatling  together ; 
and  a  little  child  shall  lead  them.  And  the  cow 


170  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

and  the  bear  shall  feed ;  their  young  ones  shall  lie 
down  together:  and  the  lion  shall  eat  straw  like 
the  ox.  And  the  suckling  child  shall  play  on  the 
hole  of  the  asp,  and  the  weaned  child  shall  put 
his  hand  on  the  adder's  den.  They  shall  not  hurt 
nor  destroy  in  all  my  holy  mountain:  for  the 
earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
Lord,  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea."  To  these 
this  prophet  had  added  such  sentences  as  one  finds 
in  Chapters  42:19;  49:1-7  and  60-62:3,  including 
the  one  quoted  by  Jesus  in  his  home  synagogue  at 
Nazareth — 

"The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is  upon  me;  be- 
cause the  Lord  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  good 
tidings  to  the  meek;  he  hath  sent  me  to  bind  up 
the  broken  hearted,  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the 
captives,  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them 
that  are  bound;  to  proclaim  the  acceptable  year 
of  the  Lord." 

With  such  thoughts  of  God's  great  purposes 
inspiring  him,  and  his  clear  sense  of  the  vast  de- 
mands of  the  situation  steadying  him,  Jesus 
joined  John  the  Baptist  in  preaching,  Repent  for 
the  kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand,  and  its  right- 
eousness must  be  yours  to  begin  with,  else  you 
cannot  even  enter  it.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
to  Jesus  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  meant  a'  reconsti- 
tuted humanity,  and  that  in  his  view  this  reconsti- 
tution  was  to  be  effected  through  the  exchange 
of  love  for  hate  and  right  for  might  in  every  re- 
lationship of  individuals  and  peoples  towards  each 


JESUS  THE  REDEEMER  171 

other.  This  exchange  would  break  down  every 
outer  and  inner  wall  of  partition  that  harmfully 
separated  men  from  each  other,  so  that  they 
would  flow  together  and  find  themselves  one  house- 
hold of  God.  (Eph.  2:14-22.)  The  prayer  put 
upon  the  lips,  and  the  laws  framed  to  govern,  the 
subjects  of  this  kingdom,  both  alike  presuppose 
this.  (Matt.  5:43-48;  6:9-15.)  The  Kingdom, 
when  completed,  will  include  the  church  of  God, 
or  will  itself  be  included  in  that  church,  if  any 
one  prefers  putting  the  case  in  that  way. 

For  a  time  Jesus's  ministry  awakened  the  larg- 
est expectations  of  the  people,  and  the  crowds 
that  flocked  into  the  country  parts  of  Judea  to  be 
baptized  by  his  disciples,  exceeded  those  which 
gathered  about  John  the  Baptist  himself.  In 
this  John  rejoiced,  for  he  took  it  as  a  proof  that 
he  had  made  no  mistake  when  he  fixed  upon  Jesus 
as  the  Unknown  One,  whose  forerunner  he  had 
undertaken  to  be.  This  success  lasted  until  it 
began  to  be  definitely  realized  that  his  idea  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God  was  after  all  substantially 
the  antipodes  of  that  which  was  cherished  by 
rulers  and  people  alike.  His  own  Nazareth  en- 
dured its  disappointment  until  one  Sabbath  when 
he  declared  in  its  synagogue  that  Elisha's  act  of 
healing  the  Syrian  leper,  and  Elijah's  bestowal 
of  relief  upon  a  widow  of  Sidon  during  a  season 
of  famine,  though  Israel  had  many  lepers  and 
needy  widows  in  those  times,  were  both  in  harmony 
with  the  principle  that  God  would  always  turn 


172  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

his  back  upon  his  people  when,  through  blind  dis- 
obedience, they  ceased  to  be  his  in  reality;  and 
that  he  would  then  bestow  his  favors  elsewhere. 
Then  his  city  rose  against  him  in  a  fury  that 
nearly  cost  him  his  life,  and  he  escaped  south- 
ward to  make  his  home  at  Capernaum. 

Here  again  he  prospered  until  by  calling  a  tax- 
gatherer  named  Levi  from  his  very  place  of  busi- 
ness, to  enter  the  number  of  his  few  intimate  dis- 
ciples, and  by  sitting  down  with  a  promiscuous 
company  of  tax-gatherers  and  other  social  out- 
casts, at  a  feast  which  Levi  immediately  prepared 
in  his  honor,  he  once  more  made  it  abundantly 
clear  that,  if  the  thing  he  represented  was  the 
kingdom  of  God  at  all,  it  was  too  unpalatable  to 
be  received  by  the  leaders  of  opinion  in  that  re- 
gion. What  use  could  the  kingdom  of  God  have 
for  men  of  Levi's  ilk?  The  lot  as  a  whole  was 
bad,  and  no  decent  society,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  would  have  anything  to  do  with 
it! 

Soon  afterwards  we  find  Jesus  looking  into  the 
heart  of  the  nation  at  Jerusalem,  only  to  find  it 
angry  and  contemptuously  malicious.  The  Jew- 
ish rulers  would  tolerate  no  Kingdom  of  God 
which  ignored  their  notions  of  Sabbath-keeping. 
They  would  permit  the  watering  of  an  ox  or  an  ass, 
and  allow  any  man  to  rescue  his  son  or  his  ox 
from  a  well,  if  either  should  chance  to  fall  into  it, 
on  the  Sabbath;  but  they  would  tolerate  no  cures 
of  the  sick,  where  life  itself  was  in  no  immediate 


JESUS  THE  REDEEMER  173 

peril,  on  that  day.  Neither  would  they  endure 
any  man  who  would  represent  the  kingdom  of 
God  as  non-militant.  For  was  not  the  Roman 
there  to  be  cast  out,  and  how  could  his  armies  be 
got  rid  of  except  by  force?  So  the  presence  of 
this  prophet  from  Nazareth  made  them  as  mad 
with  rage  as  it  had  made  the  Nazarenes  them- 
selves, and  nothing  but  his  remaining  hold  upon 
the  pojpular  imagination  and  heart,  and  the  con- 
sequent necessity  of  proceeding  with  his  taking 
off  under  forms  of  law,  saved  Jesus  from  immedi- 
ate death. 

Through  these  experiences  it  gradually  grew 
upon  him  that  his  mission  was  to  prove  a  failure, 
so  far  forth  at  least  as  its  success  depended  upon 
the  co-operation  of  the  one  church  which,  through 
age-long  divine  processes,  had  been  prepared 
with  this  definite  office  in  view.  The  revelation 
was  most  painful.  It  meant  that  he  must  re- 
vise his  first  programme.  But  how?  The  his- 
tory of  his  people  and  the  words  of  their  proph- 
ets gave  him  his  cue.  What  could  not  be  accom- 
plished easily  and  speedily,  because  the  people 
were  too  dark  and  evil  to  be  used  in  the  work, 
could  be  wrought  out  by  a  spiritual  remnant 
through  a  long  but  glorious  agony  of  toil,  involv- 
ing both  tears  and  blood.  The  teaching  and 
guiding  Servant  of  Jehovah  would  also  be  his 
suffering  Servant. 

When  Jesus  met  this  situation,  he  at  once  dealt 
with  it  as  a  thing  which  ought  never  to  have 


174  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

been.  He  faced  it  first  with  remonstrance  and 
later  with  denunciation,  followed  by  an  overwhelm- 
ing grief,  that  deepened  into  the  dark  dismay  of 
that  sweat  of  blood,  from  which  he  was  rescued  only 
by  that  love  of  his  Father,  to  which  he  resigned 
himself  throughout  the  struggle.  At  what  pre- 
cise point  in  his  public  career  this  struggle  be- 
gan we  may  not  be  able  clearly  to  determine.  It 
may  have  been  at  the  time  of  his  rejection  at 
Nazareth.  But  perhaps  his  language  in  the  syn- 
agogue there  did  not  represent  an  instant  rising 
of  his  nature  to  meet  a  hostility  of  the  existence 
of  which  he  had  until  then  been  unaware,  but 
rather  a  thought  which,  like  the  hostility  itself, 
had  been  gathering  force  for  some  time.  It  may 
be,  however,  that  he  did  not  see  at  first  that  his 
own  death  by  violence  was  involved  in  the  inevita- 
ble clash  of  ideals.  For  he  may  well  have  thought 
in  the  beginning  that  his  vision  was  too  clear  and 
commanding  to  be  rejected,  when  he  had  once  set 
it  forth  with  sufficient  plainness. 

The  fifth  chapter  of  John  shows  how  he  ap- 
pealed to  the  intellects  and  consciences  of  his  hos- 
tile critics : 

"I  have  come  in  my  Father's  name,  and  you  do 
not  receive  me ;  if  another  comes  in  his  own  name 
you  will  receive  him.  How  can  you  believe  in  me, 
when  you  receive  honor  one  from  another  and  do 
not  desire  the  honor  which  comes  from  the  only 
God?"  In  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Matthew  a  day 
is  described  in  which  "Jesus  began  to  reproach 


JESUS  THE  REDEEMER  175 

the  towns  in  which  most  of  his  miracles  had  been 
done,  because  they  had  not  repented:  'Alas  for 
you,  Chorazin!  Alas  for  you,  Bethsaida  .  .  . 
and  you,  Capernaum !'  '  Through  the  twen- 
ty-third chapter  of  this  same  gospel  we  learn 
that  a  day  came  when  this  "Alas  for  you !"  was 
repeated  in  Jerusalem  itself,  in  connection  with 
such  an  exposure  of  the  character  of  the  Jewish 
leaders  as  no  man  who  heard  it  could  ever  forget, 
ending  with  the  words:  "Alas  for  you,  Teachers 
of  the  Law  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites  that  you 
are!  You  build  the  tombs  of  the  prophets,  and 
decorate  the  monuments  of  religious  men,  and 
say,  'Had  we  been  living  in  the  days  of  our  an- 
cestors, we  should  have  taken  no  part  in  their 
murder  of  the  Prophets !'  By  doing  this  you  are 
furnishing  evidence  against  yourselves  that  you 
are  true  children  of  the  men  who  murdered  the 
Prophets.  Fill  up  the  measure  of  your  ancestor's 
guilt.  You  serpents  and  brood  of  vipers!  How 
can  you  escape  being  sentenced  to  the  Pit  ?  That 
is  why  I  send  you  prophets,  wise  men  and  Teach- 
ers of  the  Law,  some  of  whom  you  will  crucify  and 
kill,  and  some  of  whom  you  will  scourge  in  your 
synagogues,  and  persecute  from  town  to  town; 
in  order  that  upon  your  heads  may  fall  every 
drop  of  innocent  'blood  spilt  on  earth,'  from  the 
blood  of  innocent  Abel  down  to  that  of  Zachariah, 
Barachiah's  son,  whom  you  murdered  between  the 
temple  and  the  altar.  All  this,  I  tell  you,  will 
come  home  to  the  present  generation." 


176  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

His  biographers  made  no  mistake  at  this  point. 
They  saw  that  whether  he  reasoned  or  expostu- 
lated or  denounced,  he  did  it  as  a  patriot  who, 
besides  loving  that  impersonal  thing  which  men 
call  their  country,  loved  every  man,  woman  and 
child  within  its  territory,  and  was  deeply  dis- 
tressed by  the  awful  fate  towards  which  he 
saw  they  were  moving.  They  did  not  forget  that 
his  reproaches  against  the  three  Galileean  towns 
were  immediately  succeeded  by  that  yearning, 
"Come  to  me,  all  you  who  toil  and  are  burdened, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest!"  which  has  been  wooing 
men  to  righteousness  ever  since;  and  that  his  de- 
nunciations of  the  Teachers  of  the  Law  and  Phar- 
isees at  Jerusalem  had  scarcely  died  upon  his  lips 
before,  with  heaving  bosom  and  breaking  voice, 
he  exclaimed: — 

"Jerusalem!  Jerusalem!  she  who  slays  the 
Prophets  and  stones  the  messengers  sent  to  her — 
Oh!  how  often  have  I  wished  to  gather  your  chil- 
dren round  me,  as  a  hen  gathers  her  brood  under 
her  wings,  and  you  would  not  come!" 

In  Luke  we  are  told  of  a  time  during  the  closing 
days  of  his  career,  when  turning  from  the  ac- 
claim of  his  many  disciples,  and  the  correspond- 
ing criticisms  of  the  Pharisees — 

"Seeing  the  city,  he  wept  over  it,  and  said: 
'Would  that  you  had  known,  while  yet  there  was 
time — even  you — the  things  that  make  for  peace! 
But  now  they  have  been  hidden  from  your  sight.'  " 
The  same  writer  remembered  also  that  this  love 


JESUS  THE  REDEEMER  177 

voiced  itself  again,  while  he  was  proceeding  pain- 
fully towards  Calvary — "There  was  a  great  crowd 
of  people  following  him,  many  being  women  who 
were  beating  their  breasts  and  wailing  for  him. 
So  Jesus  turned  and  said  to  them:  'Women  of 
Jerusalem,  do  not  weep  for  me,  but  weep  for 
yourselves  and  for  your  children.'  "  (Luke  23  : 
27-31.) 

The  one  thing  to  which  love  can  scarcely  bring 
itself  is  that  its  object,  however  unworthy,  should 
suffer.  And  perhaps  love  suffers  more  through 
sympathy  than  its  object  can  suffer  through  any 
injuries  which  may  be  inflicted  upon  it.  This 
fact  receives  its  supreme  illustration  in  the  sphere 
of  the  moral  and  spiritual.  Wrong-doing  deadens 
sensitiveness  to  mental  pain,  while  righteousness 
quickens  it.  The  greater  the  moral  distance  be- 
tween two  characters,  the  greater  will  be  the  dif- 
ference in  their  individual  power  to  suffer  for 
each  other.  It  is  therefore  true  that  "the  Right- 
eous! One"  exceeded  all  others  in  this  respect.  To 
him  it  was  an  agony,  in  the  first  place,  that  his 
people  were  bad  and  deserved  to  suffer.  And  that 
they  were  bad  was  doubly  an  agony,  because  they, 
above  all  others,  had  been  meant  by  his  Father  to 
attain  goodness — a  goodness  which  would  have 
fitted  them  to  be  the  bearers  of  the  message  of 
righteousness  and  peace  to  all  others.  He  might 
reason  about  the  remnant,  and  find  something  like 
rest  in  the  thought  of  all  God  could  do  through 
them.  He  might  reach  the  place  where  he  could 


178  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

say  to  his  disciples:  "Do  not  be  afraid,  my  lit- 
tle flock,  for  your  Father  has  been  pleased  to  give 
you  the  kingdom."  But  how  much  better  after 
all  were  these  disciples  than  the  great  body  of  the 
people  from  whom  he  had,'  drawn  them?  Did  they 
not  persist  in  retaining  the  common  wrong  idea 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  individually  covet 
the  first  places  in  it?  Was  not  one  of  them  a 
thief  and  a  traitor?  And  would  not  all  the  rest 
of  them,  in  spite  of  all  his  teaching,  be  ill-informed 
and  weak  enough  to  reckon  everything  lost,  if  he 
should  be  taken  from  them  with  nothing  further 
accomplished? 

So  Jesus  was  torn  by  questionings,  first  re- 
garding his  disciples  themselves,  and  then  by 
corresponding  questions  touching  his  people  as  a 
whole.  Those  regarding  his  disciples  seem  to 
have  been  set  at  rest  in  the  Upper  Room  or  even 
before  the  Passover  which  he  ate  with  them  there. 
They  would  certainly  all  be  confounded  or  worse 
than  confounded,  by  his  death,  but,  Judas  ex- 
cepted,  all  would,  after  his  resurrection,  rally 
again  to  their  place  and  work.  And  if  these  ques- 
tions were  settled,  surely  all  the  others,  too,  were 
disposed  of.  Not  yet  fully  and  finally,  however. 

The  human  mind  with  its  limited  knowledge, 
cannot  easily  reach  absolute  certainty.  One  part 
of  the  cost  to  us  of  this  imperfect  knowledge  is 
the  painful  way  our  most  distressing  problems 
have  of  suddenly  opening  themselves  up  afresh 
after  they  have  apparently  been  settled  out- 


JESUS  THE  REDEEMER  179 

right.  Often  we  reach  our  chief  conclusions  only 
to  laboriously  review  them.  And  this  necessity 
for  review  is  practically  assured  each  time  one 
wishes  his  conclusion  were  unwarranted,  for  then 
his  heart  will  not  let  him  rest  in  it.  Now  Jesus 
certainly  wished  this  in  regard  to  his  conclu- 
sion. The  great  desire  of  his  life,  next  to  that  of 
pleasing  his  Father,  had  been  that  Israel,  as  a 
whole,  might  accept  him  as  its  Messiah,  just  as 
his  few  disciples  had  done.  How  much  it  would 
have  meant  if  it  had!  His  own  escape  from  an 
ignominous  death — it  would  have  meant  that ! 
But  it  would  also  have  meant  so  much  more  be- 
sides. It  would  have  meant  the  almost  immediate 
salvation  of  all  Israel  to  spiritual  ideals,  and  so 
the  early  realization  in  a  large  way  of  the  King- 
dom of  God  itself.  It  would  have  meant  that  Is- 
rael would  have  filled  her  true  place  as  the  center 
of  an  evangelism  which  would  speedily  have  em- 
braced all  lands,  and  brought  all  peoples  into  the 
glorious  light  of  God. 

As  he  passed  into  Gethsemane  under  the  shad- 
ows cast  by  the  olives  under  that  passover  moon, 
he  began  to  groan  with  a  deeper  agony  than  he 
had  ever  felt  before — 

"This  is  what  ought  to  be !  And  surely  it 
cannot  even  now  be  impossible !  This  is  the  thing 
that  ought  to  be,  yet  I  am  to  go  to  the  cross  in- 
stead !  And  my  nation  is  to  reach,  not  the  place 
of  the  glory  of  the  highest  service  to  all  the 
world  besides,  but  a  future  of  hideous  darkness 


180  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

and  pain  and  shame !  Surely,  Father,  there  must 
yet  be  a  way  out,  which  I  cannot  see!  My 
Father,  if  it  is  possible,  let  me  be  spared  this  cup." 
Thus  he  cried  and  cried,  till  the  bloody  sweat  oozed 
and  fell  to  the  earth  on  which  he  lay,  and  he 
reached  for  the  last  time  the  awful  conclusion 
that  nothing  in  harmony  with  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  the  world  could  avert  this  crowning  trag- 
edy. Then  he  prayed  again,  passing  as  he  did 
so  into  an  almost  completely  satisfying  vision  of 
the  whole  situation — 

"My  Father,  if  I  cannot  be  spared  this  cup,  but 
must  drink  it,  thy  will  be  done !" 

So  our  Christ  cried  his  cry  and  lost  the  boon 
he  craved,  to  win  instead  the  place  where  he  could 
through  all  the  pain  and  shame,  be  the  Savior  to 
men  who  were  so  disappointingly  bad,  convincing 
them  of  their  blindness  and  sin  by  means  of  his 
death,  though  he  could  not  do  it  by  means  of  the 
richest  human  life  that  was  ever  lived  in  God. 

It  has  often  happened  that  the  thing  which 
ought  to  have  been  has  proved  only  the  thing 
which  might  have  been,  and  the  thing  which  ought 
never  to  have  been  the  thing  which  no  available 
power  could  avert.  Such  results  stand  asso- 
ciated with  the  freedom  of  the  human  will  and  the 
conscious  confessed  badness  and  ignorance  of 
men.  When  Jesus  was  finally  rejected  at  Jeru- 
salem the  greatest  event  our  sinful  world  could 
have  known  at  that  period  was  made  impossible 
for  all  time;  for  then  the  anointed  of  God  was 


JESUS  THE  REDEEMER  181 

sent  to  the  cross  by  the  very  people  whom  he  came 
to  build  into  a  church  so  great  and  glorious  that 
it  would  successfully  preach  the  Salvation  of 
God  from  Palestine  to  the  uttermost  parts  of 
the  earth.  Then,  too,  was  committed  a  sin  and 
crime  as  far  beyond  that  involved  in  the  slaugh- 
ter of  preceding  prophets  and  righteous  men  as 
Jesus  Christ  was  superior  to  these.  In  it,  as  he 
himself  is  reported  to  have  warned  them  would 
be  the  case,  was  wrapped  up,  as  it  were,  the  guilt 
of  "every  drop  of  innocent  'blood  spilt  on  earth,' 
from  the  blood  of  innocent  Abel  down  to  that  of 
Zachariah."  And  this  guilt  rested  upon  the 
church  that  Christ  came  to  inspire  and  lead  in 
the  spiritual  conquest  of  the  earth. 

Recognition  of  this  fact  prepares  us  for  sev- 
eral words  of  the  New  Testament  which  indicate 
that,  in  Christ's  view,  it  was  the  church  rather 
than  the  world,  for  which  he  paid  his  life  as  a 
ransom  or  redemption  price.  In  the  very  nature 
of  the  case  the  church  was  his  first  concern.  He 
had  a  vast  work  to  do,  and  for  its  speedy  accom- 
plishment he  needed  a  great  host  of  workers, 
specially  fitted  for  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of 
the  various  offices  which  that  work  involved. 
That  host  would  be  his  church;  so  he  thought 
at  the  start.  And  when  later  he  saw  his  host 
dwindle  to  a  handful,  his  concern  was  correspond- 
ingly deepened.  For  his  handful  was  much  like 
the  rest,  and  it  also  needed  redeeming  from  its 
false  ideals  and  its  deplorable  unspirituality. 


182  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Then,  too,  as  conversions  would  take  place  through 
its  instrumentality,  the  new  believers  would  be- 
come an  additional  part  of  the  church  or  work- 
ing force  itself.  Only  so  could  the  world  as  a 
whole  be  lifted  into  the  light  of  God.  This,  I 
say,  is  why  his  followers  wrote  and  spoke  as  they 
did  about  his  redemption  of  his  Church — his  buy- 
ing it  for  God  out  of  the  general  body  of 
humanity. 

These  writers  tell  us  that  "God  so  loved  the 
world  that  he  gave  his  only  Son,"  and  that  Jesus 
was,  because  of  his  sufferings  and  death,  crowned 
with  glory  and  honor;  so  that  his  tasting  the 
bitterness  of  death  should,  in  God's  loving-kind- 
ness, be  on  behalf  of  all  mankind.  But  they 
never  tell  us  that  Jesus  Christ  loved  the  world. 
On  the  other  hand  they  dwell  rapturously  upon 
his  love  for  the  church. 

A  few  of  these  words  ought  to  be  quoted  here. 
When  John  set  out  to  record  the  story  of  the 
way  the  Master  washed  his  disciples'  feet  at  the 
time  of  the  last  passover  supper1  he  ate  with  them, 
he  began  by  stating  that1  "he  loved  those  who  were 
his  own  in  the  world,  and  he  loved  them  to  the 
last."  To  the  Ephesians  and  to  his  true  child 
Titus  Paul  wrote :  "Christ  loved  the  Church,  and 
gave  himself  for  her,  to  make  her  holy.  .  .  . 
So  that  he  might  himself  bring  the  Church,  in 
all  her  beauty,  into  his  presence,  with  no  spot 
or  wrinkle  or  blemish  of  any  kind,  but  that  she 
might  be  holy  and  faultless."  "He  gave  himself 


JESUS  THE  REDEEMER  183 

on  our  behalf,  to  deliver  us  from  all  wickedness, 
and  purify  for  himself  a  People  who  should  be 
peculiarly  his  own  and  eager  to  do  good." 

The  Church  was  on  his  heart  when,  in  the 
upper  room,  he  was  face  to  face  with  the  cross, 
and  poured  out  his  soul  to  the  Father — "I  pray 
for  them.  I  pray  not  for  the  world,  but  for 
those  whom  thou  hast  given  me.  .  .  .  Neither 
for  these  only  do  I  pray,  but  for  them  also  that 
believe  on  me  through  their  word;  that  they  may 
all  be  one  .  .  .  that  the  world  may  believe 
that  thou  didst  send  me."  His  feeling  was  that, 
first  of  all,  he  was  the  redeemer  of  his  church, 
and  afterwards  through  it  the  Savior  of  the  world, 
or,  as  Paul  puts  it,  "the  Savior  of  all  men  and 
especially  of  those  who  hold  the  Faith."  Look- 
ing in  precisely  the  same  direction  are  the  words 
of  John  concerning  the  blood-thirsty  advice  re- 
garding Jesus  which  the  high-priest  Caiaphas 
gave  the  Sanhedrin — that  unconsciously  "he 
prophesied  that  Jesus  should  die  for  the  nation," 
which  should  as  a  whole  have  been  his  church, — 
"and  not  for  the  nation  only,  but  also  that  he 
might  unite  in  one  body  the  children  of  God  now 
scattered  far  and  wide." 

The  heart  of  Jesus  was  broken  by  disappoint- 
ment. This  disappointment  voiced  itself  for  the 
last  time  when,  just  before  he  expired  on  the 
cross,  he  cried  out  in  anguish — "My  God,  my  God, 
why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  And  the  thing 
which  disappointed  him  was  the  sin  of  his  church. 


184  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

He  ought  never  to  have  been  called  upon  to 
redeem  it.  But  its  ignorance  and  badness,  grow- 
ing out  of  its  lack  of  spirituality,  forced  the 
task  upon  him.  He  ought,  instead,  to  have  been 
the  church's  accepted  head  from  the  first.  No 
teaching  of  the  New  Testament  is  clearer  than 
this  for  one  who  has  come  to  view  that  life  in 
its  true  perspective.  He  came  to  his  own,  and  his 
own  ought  to  have  received  him.  It  was  theirs 
to  have  been  in  their  deepest  hearts  a  theocracy, 
with  their  spiritual  overtopping  their  political 
ambitions.  But  they  were  no  such  thing.  On 
the  contrary,  their  religion  consisted  in  a  sincere, 
but  vain,  attempt  to  bend  the  Almighty  to  their 
will,  and  get  the  All-wise  One  to  take  a  reason- 
able view  of  things !  They  nursed  the  delusion 
that,  since  they  had  Abraham  as  their  ancestor, 
God  was  under  large  obligations  to  them,  if  not 
actually  dependent  upon  them. 

They  were  bound  to  get  the  worst  of  it  in  the 
end,  of  course.  Counting  themselves  the  first  of 
patriots  their  rejection  of  Jesus  as  no  patriot 
at  all  cost  them  everything  a  patriot  holds  dear. 
Because  the  moral  government  of  God  is  no  poor 
pretense,  that  can  safely  be  mocked,  the  penalty 
it  exacted  was  the  absolute  overthrow  of  their 
religion,  as  far  as  it  was  represented  by  sacrifi- 
cial rites  and  ceremonies,  the  permanent  breaking 
up  of  their  political  institutions,  and  their  age- 
long expatriation  from  a  soil  so  dear  to  them, 
that  their  descendants  two  thousand  years  after 


JESUS  THE  REDEEMER  185 

the  event,  still  prostrate  themselves  to  kiss  it, 
when  their  wanderings  permit  them  the  opportu- 
nity. 

When  "the  Word  became  Man"  and  "His  own" 
stood  face  to  face  with  him,  they  found  themselves 
compelled  to  choose  one  of  two  courses.  They 
had  either  to  accept  his  leadership  or  "become 
his  betrayers  and  murderers."  God  who  has  from 
the  first  triumphed  over  human  wickedness  by 
building-  its  deeds  into  his  plans  (Acts  3:13-19; 
2:23),  foresaw  that  this  church  would  pursue  the 
latter  course,  involving  itself  in  the  most  awful 
thraldom  possible,  and  decreed  that  in  spite  of 
its  ill  deserts  it  should  be  redeemed  (Rom.  11:25, 
26)  ;  so  that,  when  it  could  not,  because  it  would 
not,  be  reconciled  to  God  by  the  life  of  his  Son, 
God  put  his  love  for  it  beyond  all  doubt,  by  send- 
ing his  Son  to  the  cross,  to  reconcile  to  himself, 
through  that  death,  each  member  of  it,  and  all 
men  besides.  (Rom.  5:8-10.)  Thus  by  means 
of  a  sacrifice,  which  ought  never  to  have  been 
necessary,  our  race  is  being  brought  to  God. 
And  the  whole  body  of  believers  continually  re- 
cites— 

"Christ  loved  the  Church  and  gave  himself  for 
her"  (Eph.  5:25);  while  individually  they  ador- 
ingly add — 

He  is  "the  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me,  and  gave 
himself  for  me."  (Gal.  2:20.) 


XII 
JESUS  AND  THE  ATONEMENT 

The  death  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  most  awful 
and  at  the  same  time  the  most  glorious  event  in 
the  spiritual  history  of  our  race.  He  was  mur- 
dered by  his  own  people,  when  he  was  sent  to 
bless  them  by  turning  each  one  of  them  from  his 
wicked  ways.  (Acts  3:£6.)  But  it  is  also  true 
that  he  was  handed  over  to  death  both1  by  his  God 
and  Father  and  by  himself.  His  death  was  in- 
cluded in  the  vast  redeeming  plan  of  God  from  the 
beginning.  It  was  by  his  stripes  that  men  were 
to  be  healed.  After  his  incarnation  this  fact  be- 
came at  last  a  part  of  his  human  knowledge,  and, 
agreeably  to  it,  he  laid  down  his  life,  falling  as  a 
grain  of  wheat  falls  into  the  earth,  to  produce  a 
harvest.  "Once  for  all  he  died  for  our  sins,  the 
innocent  One  for  the  guilty  many,  that  he  might 
bring  us  to  God."  (1st  Pet.  3:18.)  By  his 
bringing  us  to  God  he  reconciles  us  to  him  or 
at-ones  us  with  him.  And  since  his  death  is  the 
means  by  which  he  effects  this  work  of  reconcilia- 
tion and  at-one-ment,  it  has  been  called  his  at-one- 
ing  or  atoning  death.  Then  another  step  in 
thought  and  its  expression  has  brought  it  to  pass 
that  the  death  itself  is  spoken  of  as  the  atonement. 

186 


JESUS  AND  THE  ATONEMENT     187 

This  word  atonement  is  often  upon  the  lips  of 
Christian  believers,  and  has  been  for  generations. 
Still  it  was  not  a  word  of  the  apostolic  church. 
It  occurs  but  once  in  the  new  Testament,  namely, 
in  Romans  5:11.  And  no  modern  translator  of 
the  Greek  New  Testament  uses  the  word  even  here 
but  represents  the  Greek  Katallage  and  Katalasso 
by  the  words  reconciliation  and  reconcile.  The 
reason  for  this  is  that  the  word  atonement  is  more 
or  less  misleading,  while  reconcile  and  reconcilia- 
tion are  not  so  open  to  that  objection.  The  word 
is  favored  to-day  by  theologians  who  entertain 
certain  views  touching  the  purpose  of  Christ's 
death.  They  use  it  to  represent  the  work  which 
they  say  he  accomplished  by  his  death  upon  the 
cross,  and  which  they  call  his  finished  work — his 
all-sufficient  atonement. 

The  work  which  had  to  be  effected,  according 
to  this  teaching,  was  the  bringing  of  God  into 
the  place  where  his  wrath  against  the  race  of  sin- 
ners he  had  created,  or  the  offense  his  holiness 
had  taken  in  view  of  their  sin,  would  be  so  far  ap- 
peased or  mollified  that  he  could  forgive  its  in- 
dividual members — forgive  them  in  a  body  once 
and  for  all,  if  we  may  trust  Principal  Forsyth  in 
his  "Cruciality  of  The  Cross."  On  page  89  of 
this  book  he  declares — 

"The  conscience  finds  no  rest  till  it  finds  in  the  cross 
the  one  final  act  in  which  both  the  goodness  and  the 
severity  of  God  are  reconciled  and  inwoven,  with  the 
grace  uppermost.  I  meet  the  atonement  where  the 


188  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

sin  of  the  world  is  taken  away,  which  carries  in  it  the 
foregone  forgiveness  of  sins  that  I  dread  and  yet  am 
sure  that  I  shall  do." 

On  pages  90,  91  he  adds — 

"A  man  with  his  eyes  truly  opened  to  his  sin  must 
have  a  finished  work,  and  a  God  who  has  made  a 
full  end.  A  conscience  in  his  state,  as  soon  as  it 
thinks  on  a  world  scale,  must  have  a  grace  and  sal- 
vation which  is  not  benignant  only,  but  gathers  up 
the  total  moral  situation  in  one  act,  and  settles  the 
great  strife  for  good  and  all.  He  must  have  more 
than  a  full  forgiveness,  he  must  have  a  complete  re- 
demption. .  .  .  A  man  needs  something  to  make 
him  confident  that  his  past  sin,  and  the  sin  he  is  yet 
sure  to  commit,  are  all  taken  up  into  God's  redemp- 
tion, and  the  great  moral  transaction  of  his  life  is 
done.  The  real  complete  forgiveness  is  the  appro- 
priation of  the  world's  atonement." 

The  learned  principal  is  by  no  means  easy  to 
follow.  On  page  78  where  he  says  "The  atone- 
ment did  not  procure  grace ;  it  flowed  from  grace," 
he  renounces  ideas  which  simply  refuse  to  quit 
him. 

The  gist  of  all  such  teaching  is  this — God  had 
to  become  a  man  and  die  on  a  cross,  or  otherwise, 
as  a  victim  to  the  malice  of  those  whom,  through 
his  incarnation,  he  had  made  his  fellows,  before 
he  could  consent  to  bless  our  race  with  his  saving 
mercy.  (P.  177.)  So  in  an  article  of  his  pub- 
lished as  its  leader  by  the  British  Weekly  of  Feb- 
ruary 10th,  1910,  Principal  Forsyth  supplements 


JESUS  AND  THE  ATONEMENT     189 

his  book  by  declaring — "The  death  of  Christ  was 
the  active  atonement  made  to  holiness  by  God 
himself." 

In  examining  such  a  teaching  one  asks  first — 
What  is  the  holiness  to  which  God  is  said  to  have 
made  this  "active  atonement?"  Does  it  reside  in 
himself  or  outside  of  him?  If  outside  of  him,  it 
must  be  greater  than  He,  and  able  to  command 
him;  which  is  absurd.  If  within  him  and  a  part 
of  his  nature,  then  God  had  to  propitiate  a  part 
of  himself,  or  an  attribute  of  his  own,  as  one  may 
choose  to  put  it,  by  offering  up  a  sufficient  sacri- 
fice and  expiation  to  that  attribute.  And  each 
may  think  of  this  as  he  can. 

The  rest  of  the  teaching  is  that,  apart  from 
this  atonement — this  "sacrifice  offered  by  God  to 
holiness" — He  could  not,  because  of  some  obsta- 
cle existing  in  himself,  have  forgiven  men  at  all, 
but  that  having  made  this  offering,  He  not  only 
can  forgive  them,  but  has  actually  forgiven  every 
man's  sin,  past,  present  and  to  come;  yet  only  in 
such  a  way  that  each  man,  to  make  his  forgiveness 
an  actual,  or  lasting,  advantage  to  himself,  must 
accept  it  on  certain  prescribed  conditions;  other- 
wise he  will  be  no  better  off  than  he  would  have 
been  if  he  had  never  been  forgiven  at  all,  and  prob- 
ably much  worse  off,  because  every  failure  to  ac- 
cept will  likely  be  treated  as  a  wicked  rejection. 
(P.  169.) 

Such  a  teaching  raises  a  number  of  questions 
that  have  often  been  debated.  To  deal  with  any 


190  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

one  of  these  in  a  satisfactory  way,  it  is  necessary 
to  take  some  primary  facts  and  principles  into 
account.  This  I  shall  now  proceed  to  do.  And 
my  thoughts,  like  those  of  Principal  Forsyth,  shall 
begin  and  end  with  God. 

God  is  man's  creator.  Not  only  did  he  create 
the  first  human  pair,  but  he  has  been  equally  the 
creator  of  every  individual  since.  For  he  estab- 
lished and  maintains  the  law  of  reproduction,  and 
the  associate  law  that  like  must  beget  like.  He 
foresaw  the  sin  of  the  race  before  creating  it.  His 
perfect  prevision  saw  sin  enter  the  world  to  work 
its  terrible  ravages.  Yet  he  proceeded  to  create, 
and  proceeds  still.  The  result,  as  Paul  viewed 
it  in  his  day,  is  that  "all  have  sinned."  God  has, 
therefore,  always  been  responsible  for  maintain- 
ing a  race  of  sinners  upon  the  earth.  The  work 
of  nutrition  going  on  within  them,  along  with 
their  every  breath  and  heart-beat,  are  each  instant 
dependent  upon  his  will,  for  to  them  these  are  in- 
voluntary activities,  which  many  of  them  in  their 
deep  misery  have  often  wished  might  cease;  and 
too  often  they  have  rashly  stopped  them. 

It  is  no  answer  to  this  to  say  that  God  has 
gifted  each  man  with  a  conscience  which  tells  him 
that  he  should  not  sin.  For  God  has  not  asso- 
ciated with  that  conscience  the  power  that  can 
steadily  enable  the  man  to  obey  it,  and  so  keep 
himself  from  sinning.  Thus  men  in  their  natural 
state,  according  to  both  the  Bible  and  universal 
experience,  are  sinners  who  cannot  keep  from  sin- 


JESUS  AND  THE  ATONEMENT     191 

ning,  no  matter  how  earnestly  they  may  strive 
to  do  so.  Their  consciences  make  them  wretched 
in  their  sins,  and  their  moral  weakness  makes  it 
impossible  for  them  to  climb  out  of  the  horrible 
pit  and  miry  clay  in  which  they  find  themselves 
sinking.  So  their  most  sustained  moral  endeavor 
is  but  the  Sisyphus-act  of  rolling  the  stone  almost 
to  the  hill's  summit,  only  to  see  it  roll  back  to  the 
foot  once  more,  while  they  experience  now  the 
agony  of  strained  effort,  and  now  the  bitterer 
agony  of  defeat.  This  is  how  the  Gentile  mind 
pictured  the  situation.  A  Jeremiah,  on  the  other 
hand,  cried  out: 

"The  heart  is  deceitful  above  all  things,  and  it 
is  desperately  sick:  who  can  know  it?"  (Jer.  IT: 
9.)  And  a  Paul  declared — 

"I  am  earthly — sold  into  slavery  to  sin  ... 
.  .  .  I  find  myself  doing  the  very  thing  that 
I  hate  .  .  .  The  bad  thing  that  I  want 
not  to  do — that  I  habitually  do  ...  The 
action  is  no  longer  my  own,  but  that  of  sin  which 
is  within  me,"  and  which  I  can  by  no  means  cast 
out.  "Miserable  man  that  I  am !" 

To  say  that  sin,  with  all  this  slavery  and 
wretchedness,  is  hereditary,  and  that  it  can  all 
be  traced  back  to  the  fault  of  the  first  human 
pair,  is  to  say  too  little.  The  thing  is  true,  but 
it  is  only  a  small  part  of  the  truth.  The  great 
fact  is  the  one  which  I  have  already  noticed.  The 
God  who  knew  the  end  from  the  beginning  and 
had  all  things  mlhis  power,  knowing  men  would  be 


192  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

such  tortured  slaves  if  he  brought  them  into  being, 
did  and  does  bring  them  into  being.  And  it  was 
he  that  established  the  law  of  hereditary  sin.  It 
was  he  who  made  it  true  that — 

"That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh,"  and 
gave  each  child  over  to  the  training  of  a  sinful 
home  and  a  sinful  society.  His  own  action  made 
it  certain  that  once  sin  entered  into  the  world  it 
would  be  perpetuated.  Man  a  sinner  and  help- 
less to  rise  above  his  sin,  though  torturing  himself 
on  account  of  his  wrong-doing  and  wrong-being, 
is  the  word  which  describes  the  actual  moral  his- 
tory of  the  race.  And  no  man,  since  the  first  pair 
at  least,  has  had  any  choice  in  the  matter.  On 
the  contrary  each  has  just  helplessly  come  and 
taken  his  place  in  one  of  the  miserable  sin-cursed 
generations. 

Unless  there  is  a  personal  devil  with  vast  pow- 
ers, God  alone  is  responsible  for  all.  And  if  there 
is  such  a  devil,  then  God  is  responsible  for  having 
created  us  to  fall  and  remain  under  his  power 
for  all  these  thousands  of  years.  The  first  human 
pair  could  not,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case, 
have  been  responsible  for  more  than  themselves. 
For  they  could  neither  shake  off  their  own  sin, 
when  once  they  had  fallen  under  it,  nor  prevent 
themselves  from  passing  its  crushing  weight  on 
to  their  descendants. 

But  if,  in  the  final  analysis,  the  awful  presence 
of  sin  among  men  is  due  to  the  deliberate  fore- 
seeing choice  of  God  himself  in  the  matter ;  and, 


JESUS  AND  THE  ATONEMENT     193 

as  we  have  seen,  there  is  absolutely  no  escape 
from  this  conclusion;  then  there  are  other  con- 
clusions that  are  equally  inevitable.  The  first 
of  these  is  that  his  act  needs  justification,  and  par- 
ticularly in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  has  treated 
sin  so  seriously  as  to  convince  men,  through  the 
conscience  with  which  he  has  gifted  them,  that  it 
ought  not  to  exist.  If  sin  ought  not  to  exist,  and 
yet  God  opened  up  the  way  for  its  entrance  and 
long  perpetuation  here,  then  it  must  be  further 
true  that  nothing  can  justify  this  act  of  his, 
short  of  some  adequate  effort  on  his  part  to  des- 
troy sin,  and  bring  men  as  a  whole  into  that  life 
of  complete  righteousness  and  holy  love  for  which 
they  feel  they  were  meant. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  New  Testament 
meets  us  with  its  heavenly  message,  and  I  shall 
name  five  things  which  it  makes  perfectly  clear — 

1.  God  has  from  the  beginning  recognized  the 
obligations  under  which  he  placed  himself  by  the 
creation  of  our  race.  John  the  Revelator  brings 
this  fact  forward  when  he  writes  of  Jesus  as  "the 
Lamb  that  has  been  sacrificed  from  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world."  The  writer  of  second  Timo- 
thy calls  attention  to  the  love  of  God  which  "was 
extended  to  us  through  Christ  Jesus  before  time 
began,"  or  "before  times  eternal."  And  one  of 
Paul's  words  to  the  Ephesians  assures  us  that 
"He  chose  us  in  him  before  the  creation  of  the  uni- 
verse." This  last  word  makes  the  scheme  of 
man's  redemption  from  sin  older  than  the  work  of 


194  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

creation.  That  is  to  say,  God  counted  the  full 
cost  from  the  first  and  took  no  step  towards  pro- 
ducing the  race,  which  he  knew  would  fall  into 
sin,  until  he  had  devised  the  very  scheme  for  its 
recovery,  which  filled  the  New  Testament  writers 
with  such  adoring  wonder,  and  has  made  the  book, 
into  which  the  unambitious  productions  of  their 
pens  were  soon  gathered,  the  greatest  in  all  litera- 
ture. 

2.  Having  foreordained  the  human  career  of 
his  divine   Son,   God  prepared   the  large   central 
section  of  the  world  of  mankind  both  religiously 
and  politically   for   his   incarnation;   so  that,   as 
Paul  states,  "when  the  full  time  came,  God  sent 
his  son."     Then,  when  the  visible  work  of  Christ 
came   to   an   end,   that  invisible   agent,  the  Holy 
Spirit,  began  to  use  the  facts  of  his  life,  death 
and   resurrection  in   such   a  way  as   to  build  up 
that  (with  one  exception)   greatest  and  most  en- 
during   of    earthly    institutions,    the    Church    of 
Christ. 

3.  God  views  his  sinless  Son  as  his  sufficient 
vindication    before     the     whole     universe.     Fore- 
knowing all,  he  had  created  and  maintained  a  race, 
every  member  of  which  had  been  a  suffering,  self- 
condemned   sinner,   whose  chief  wretchedness  had 
grown  out  of  the  fact  that  no  righteous  I-ought- 
and-I-will  of  his  could  lift  him  into  the  place  of 
purity  and  goodness  that  would  satisfy  even  him- 
self.    And  there  was  really  nothing  on  earth  to 
show  that  God  had  anything  better  in  store  for 


JESUS  AND  THE  ATONEMENT     195 

the  race  than  moral  and  spiritual  disappointment 
and  confusion — no  convincing  proof  whatever 
that  he  was  not  either  taking  some  secret  delight 
in  the  frightful  situation,  or  finding  himself  too 
weak  or  too  unskillful  to  cope  with  it.  A  Pilate 
was  being  prepared  to1  ask  with  a  levity  too  bitter 
to  laugh,  "What  is  truth?"  The  most  earnest 
souls  had  been  plagued  by  the  thought  that  the 
moral  government  of  the  world  was  largely  a 
failure  and  would  remain  so.  Again  and  again 
they  had  found  themselves  in  the  deepest  doubt 
as  to  whether  anything  really  worth  while  could 
result  from  any  man's  efforts  toward  holiness. 

Then  the  child  was  born  in  Bethlehem  that  grew 
up  unsinning,  entered  upon  a  public  career  on  be- 
half of  his  people,  stood  for  active  good-will  in 
every  direction,  and  that  in  the  face  of  the  deep- 
est misunderstanding  and  malice,  and  died  pray- 
ing for  his  murderers  rather  than  swerve  one 
hairsbreadth  from  truth  and  righteousness.  So 
at  length,  as  Paul  puts  it — 

"God  sending  his  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful 
flesh,  and  as  an  offering  for  sin,  condemned  sin  in 
the  flesh"  (Rom.  8:3)  ;  to  convince  men,  in  the 
first  place,  that  no  sin  whatever]  had  his  approval, 
and  that  "in  passing  over  the  sins  done  afore- 
time," he  had  been  exercising  "forbearance,"  with 
the  new  and  holy  order  of  things  continually  in 
view. 

4.  Justified  thus  in  his  own  eyes,  and  also 
partly  in  ours,  God  looks  towards  the  comple- 


196  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

tion  of  Christ's  saving  work,  when  he  will  be,  not 
only  justified,  but  also  glorified  in  the  vision  of 
all.  Here  again  it  is  Paul  who  draws  aside  the 
veil  for  us.  His  first  word  is — 

"And  this  God  did  ...  as  a  proof,  I 
repeat,  at  the  present  time,  of  his  own  righteous- 
ness that  he  might  be  righteous  in  our  eyes." 
(Rom.  3:26.)  And  his  second  word  beautifully 
supplements  it — 

"As  yet  we  see  in  a  mirror,  dimly,  but  then, 
when  the  Perfect  has  come — face  to  face.  As  yet 
my  knowledge  is  incomplete,  but  then  I  shall  know 
in  full,  as  I  have  been  fully  known."  (1  Cor. 
13:12). 

To  these  John  of  the  Revelation  adds — 

"Then  I  saw  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth 
.  .  .  The  old  order  has  passed  away."  (Rev. 
21:1,  4.) 

5.  God  sees  his  Son  also  as  the  propitation 
for  the  sins  of  our  whole  race.  This  word  pro- 
pitiation, used  twice  only  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  both  times  in  first  John,  looks  in  two  direc- 
tions, perhaps — Godward  and  manward.  God- 
ward  it  indicates  that  Jesus  Christ  perfectly  sat- 
isfied the  Father  in  his  individual  earthly  life,  re- 
garded both  by  itself  and  as  the  divine-human  in- 
strument by  means  of  which  the  whole  race  will  at 
length  be  raised  to  the  same  satisfying  height  of 
sinlessness,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  sharing  in 
the  divine  nature  on  the  other.  (2  Pet.  1 :4.) 
Glancing  manward,  it  notes  our  hostility  to  God 


JESUS  AND  THE  ATONEMENT     197 

and  views  Jesus  Christ  as  the  appeaser  of  all  our 
wrath  against  him.  (Rom.  8:7-9.)  Through 
him  men's  understandings  are  being  so  enlight- 
ened that  at  length  they  will  see  that  God  is  love, 
and  will  trust  him  wholly,  with  not  one  Job's  wife 
left  to  utter  her  exhortation  to  renounce  God  and 
commit  suicide.  (Job.  2:9.) 

So,  according  to  Paul,  Christ  is  in  himself  the 
very  place  of  propitiation  where  God  and  men 
are  continually  meeting  each  other,  to  establish 
harmonious  relations,  and  where,  before  all  is 
done,  they  will  realize,  through  that  full  divine  ex- 
planation of  every  issue  involved,  which  resides  in 
Christ  himself,  the  completest  reconciliation  and 
the  highest  mutual  satisfaction.  (Rom.  3:25) 
and  (2  Cor.  5:17-21.)  All  true  gospel  preachers 
proclaim  this  story  and  look  towards  this  goal. 
It  is,  therefore,  clear  that  for  the  question — Why 
did  God  create  man  to  be  miserable  physically 
and  morally,  his  conscience  and  will  out  of  joint 
and  the  former  wielding  a  whip  of  scorpions? — 
the  New  Testament  has  the  answer — That  he 
might  save  him,  by  bringing  him  into  the  fullest 
harmony  with  himself  and  his  whole  environment ; 
and  when  this  salvation  has  been  fully  received, 
the  whole  race  will  exult  in  it  as  absolutely  suf- 
ficient. (Rom.  11:25,  T.  C.  N.  T.) 

Now  in  view  of  all  we  have  seen,  what  shall  we 
say  regarding  the  nature  of  the  atonement?  We 
have  seen  that  in  giving  his  Son  to  be  the  Savior 
of  the  World,  God  discharged  to  the  full  a  self- 


198  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

imposed  obligation,  and  was  true  to  himself  as  the 
eternal  source  of  every  I-ought  that  was  ever  felt 
or  uttered  or  acted  upon  in  our  universe.  We 
whom  he  made  to  reason  on  righteousness,  and  re- 
spond to  its  claims,  can  clearly  perceive  the  na- 
ture of  this  obligation.  He  simply  could  not 
have  made  himself  the  creator  of  our  race,  fore- 
seeing its  fall  into  sin  without  providing  for  its 
recovery,  and  have  remained  righteous.  On  the 
other  hand,  as  the  infinitely  Righteous  One,  he 
could  not  do  an  unrighteous  thing  in  any  direc- 
tion. Consequently  he  undertook  our  race's  res- 
cue as  a  matter  of  course,  and  arranged  for  it  in 
the  fullest  manner  before  beginning  his  work  of 
creation  at  all.  Because  he  is  love  he  created 
us  as1  beings  whom  he  would  care  for,  and  in  whose 
development  he  might  delight;  and  because  he  is 
love  he  made  himself  also  our  Redeemer. 

So  far  all  is  clear.  The  question  which  as  yet 
is  for  the  most  part  wrapped  in  mystery,  is  how 
it  was  that  our  God,  who  is  almighty  love,  found 
sin  and  suffering  unavoidable  in  connection  with 
his  holy  plans  for  our  race.  We  know,  however, 
that  some  day  we  shall  have  this  problem  also 
solved  for  us. 

As  our  example  in  obedience  towards  his  Father, 
and  thus  our  Savior  to  the  uttermost,  Jesus  was 
compelled  to  lay  down  his  life.  But  the  thing  his 
Father  required  was  not  his  death  but  his  obedi- 
ence unto  death.  If  he  could  have  been  obedient 
to  the  utmost  in  speaking  and  living  the  truth, 


JESUS  AND  THE  ATONEMENT     199 

without  provoking  the  leaders  of  his  people  to 
secure  his  death  by  crucifixion,  he  would  have  been 
our  race's  Savior  without  dying,  quite  as  effec- 
tively as  he  is  now.  He  himself  represented  his 
rejection  and  murder  as  the  crowning  act  of  hu- 
man wickedness  along  that  line,  and  fought 
against  it  from  the  first  moment  he  became  aware 
of  it  as  a  peril,  doing  everything  in  his  power 
both  Godward  and  manward  to  avert  it.  It  was, 
therefore,  Christ's  obedience  to  the  utmost,  and 
not  his  death  considered  in  itself,  that  counted. 
The  death  itself  was  simply  the  worst  of  all  mur- 
ders. But  the  obedience  associated  with  it  was 
necessary  to  our  redemption  to  the  same  height 
of  devotion  to  the  will  of  our  Father  in  heaven. 
It  was  on  this  account,  and  on  this  account  alone, 
that  Jesus  laid  down  his  life — he  could  not  under 
the  circumstances  have  been  obedient  to  the  ut- 
most and  retained  it.  Failing  at  that  point  of 
the  supreme  test,  he  would  have  made  himself  a 
disobedient  sinner,  by  turning  aside  from  the  truth 
as  really  as  Peter  did  when  he  denied  all  knowl- 
edge of  him. 

How  then  shall  we  truly  express  in  brief  the 
New  Testament  doctrine  of  the  atonement  ?  Shall 
we  not  say  this?  It  stands  for  the  fact  that 
God  gave  his  Son  to  the  death  of  the  cross  (1) 
because  his  righteous  love  knew  and  honored  its 
own  obligation  to  provide  us  a  Savior  who  could 
not  fail  in  his  task,  and  (2)  because  nothing  short 
of  obedience  to  the  utmost  could  have  fitted  Jesus 


200  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Christ  to  be  such  a  Savior.  As  representing  the 
utter  yielding  up  of  one  life  to  God  on  behalf  of 
others,  Christ's  death  was  a  sacrifice.  To  God 
it  was  a  satisfaction  because  it  represents  the  one 
life  in  which  he  has  always  rested  as  all  it  should  be 
in  itself,  and  at  the  same  time,  all  that  is  required 
by  him  for  the  full  recovery  to  himself  of  the 
whole  race.  It  was  a  propitiation  for  the  reason 
that  through  it  the  destruction  of  all  the  race's 
sin  and  enmity  against  God  stands  provided  for. 
Because  it  was  a  perfectly  righteous  human  life 
yielding  itself  up  on  behalf  of  its  sinning  race,  it 
could  be  called  an  expiation ;  and  as  the  appointed 
means  for  bringing  men  into  perfect  harmony 
with  God,  it  can  be  spoken  of  as  an  atonement. 
But  Jesus  never  became  any  man's  substitute. 
That  idea  is  essentially  immoral,  and  has  been 
gladly  abandoned. 

If  all  this  is  true — if  the  righteous  love  that 
created  us  could  not  find  rest  for  itself  except  in 
redeeming  us;  and  if  that  in  Jesus  Christ  by 
means  of  which  we  are  redeemed  is  his  obedience 
to  the  utmost  on  our  account;  are  we  not  war- 
ranted in  saying  that  our  God,  who  is  love,  has 
always  done,  is  now  doing,  and  will  continue  to 
do  all  that  can  be  done  for  the  further  redemp- 
tion of  each  succeeding  generation  of  our  race, 
until  he  has  at  length  lifted  it  into  the  fullest 
fellowship  with  himself?  And  are  we  not  dark- 
ening counsel  with  words  when  we  talk  as  if  there 
was  something  in  God  himself  that  had  to  be  dealt 


JESUS  AND  THE  ATONEMENT     201 

with  by  sacrifice,  and  silenced,  and  that  by  himself, 
before  he  could  bless  us  with  his  saving  grace? 
Does  not  the  very  word  atonement  become  a  stum- 
bling block,  the  moment  it  is  used  to  convey  this 
idea?  When  we  speak  of  "the  death  of  Christ 
as  the  active  atonement  made  to  holiness  by  God 
himself,"  or  say  that  God  has  and  has  not  for- 
given a  soul  at  one  and  the  same  time,  we  use 
language  of  which  it  can  be  truly  affirmed,  that 
it  neither  belongs  to  the  field  of  working  ideas, 
nor  pertains  to  a  philosophy  that  makes  anything 
plain. 

When  one  is  asked  to  explain  how  the  death 
of  Christ,  or,  rather,  his  obedience  unto  death, 
is  of  such  infinite  value  to  us,  and  how  God  at- 
ones us  with  himself  by  means  of  it,  he  need  not 
regard  the  answer  as  quite  beyond  our  present 
reach.  Christ  was  our  example  in  his  death 
quite  as  truly,  and  much  more  convincingly,  than 
in  his  life.  It  has  been  by  his  obedience  unto 
death  that  he  has  redeemed  men  up  to  the  present. 
By  means  of  that  death  the  Holy  Spirit  enlight- 
ens, convicts,  converts,  cleanses  and  girds  men 
with  invincible  holy  might.  That  is  why  the 
New  Testament  declares  that  each  believer  in 
Christ  is  saved  by  his  blood,  and  that  for  these 
the  cross  stands  so  distinctly  in  the  foreground. 
Christ's  obedience  untd  death  is  God's  supreme  in- 
strument in  lifting  men  from  sin  to  righteousness. 
Had  his  obedience  not  been  equal  to  this  final  test 
it  would  have  proved  a  poor  lever  indeed,  but  hav- 


202  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

ing  triumphed  then  as  always  before,  it  was  the 
mightiest  that  even  God  could  provide  himself 
with. 

Man  was  made  to  think,  and  to  rise  no  higher 
than  his  own  thought.  Through  Christ  God  is 
slowly  teaching  him  to  think  in  the  terms  of  a  life 
which,  obeying  him  to  the  utmost,  rises  to  sinless- 
ness,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  completest  posi- 
tive righteousness,  on  the  other.  In  saving  men 
the  Holy  Spirit  uses  only  each  individual's  I-see- 
and-I-ought,  but  he  lifts  each  one  to  the  level  of 
that  the  moment  he  adopts  it  as  his  chief  imme- 
diate object  of  desire  and  faith.  And  the  high- 
est I-see-and-I-ought  emanates  forever  from  the 
cross  of  Christ,  or  rather,  from  the  Christ  of  the 
cross.  God  made  man  to  think  and  to  raise  him 
to  the  level  of  the  highest  thought  he  could  give 
him  through  Jesus  Christ.  (1  Jno.  3:1-3.) 


XIII 
JESUS  AND   THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM 

In  Israel  the  priest  and  the  prophet  could  never 
agree,  excepting  when  the  priest  himself  was  also 
a  prophet.  The  Priest  stood  for  the  shadow, 
the  Prophet  for  the  substance;  the  priest  for  rit- 
ual, the  prophet  for  righteousness ;  the  priest  for 
services  conducted  before  God,  the  prophet  for 
services  rendered  to  God;  the  priest  for  the  out- 
ward, the  prophet  for  the  inward;  the  priest  for 
the  imagination  and  the  emotions,  the  prophet 
for  the  intellect  and  the  conscience  as  well;  the 
priest  for  a  showy  ceremonial  and  dead  offerings, 
the  prophet  for  living,  palpitating  holy  and  right- 
eous human  reality.  And  because  the  quarrel 
was  deadly  it  brought  about  a  contrast  of  its 
own.  The  priest  murdered  the  prophet,  and  the 
prophet  died  for  the  priest;  and  only  thus  could 
the  prophet  redeem  the  priest  and  lead  him  up 
out  of  his  shadows  into  the  light  and  life  of  God. 
Thus  it  continued  through  the  centuries,  the 
priest  always  repenting  of  his  father's  murders 
while  reddening  his  hands  with  his  own,  in  that 
slow,  conservative,  yet  blood-thirsty  stupidity,  so 
vividly  portrayed  by  Jesus  himself,  when  he,  the 
greatest  prophet  of  all  time,  found  himself  face 

203 


204  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

to  face  with  this  same  stupidly  slow,  blood-thirsty 
and  murderous  priest. 

The  priest  and  the  prophet  have  continued 
confronting  each  other.  They  live  on  still,  each 
bearing  the  same  name  as  the  other,  and  each  pre- 
serving his  own  characteristics  and  discharging 
his  own  peculiar  functions,  precisely  as  in  the  older 
days.  Once  both  were  Israelites,  then  both  were 
Jews,  now  both  wear  the  name  of  Christ.  But 
now,  as  then,  the  first  stands  for  a  fact  outworn 
and  probably  also  perverted,  the  second  for  the 
vital  fact  which  is  struggling  up  to  victory  to-day 
and  will  be  crowned  and  reigning  to-morrow.  Now, 
also,  as  from  the  beginning,  it  is  as  perfectly 
natural  for  the  first  to  appeal  to  fraud  and  vio- 
lence, physical  and  intellectual,  and  the  second  to 
make  his  appeal  calmly  and  fairly  to  the  unfet- 
tered intellect  and  conscience;  as  it  is  for  the  first 
to  claim  that  if  you  would  be  convinced  of  the  au- 
thority of  a  fact,  no  matter  how  unjust  or  per- 
verted it  may  be,  all  you  need  do  is  find  out  that 
it  had  its  origin  very  far  back  in  the  years  and  is 
not  yet  quite  extinct,  and  for  the  second  to  es- 
pouse and  proclaim  his  fact  on  the  simple  ground 
of  its  evident  present  and  future  value  to  the  in- 
dividual and  society  at  large.  The  priest  arro- 
gates to  himself  all  the  respectability  that  exists 
anywhere,  denounces  the  prophet  as  an  upstart 
who  never  even  had  a  father  worth  mentioning 
and  knows  that  the  future  will  be  his  own  because 
he  has  already  reached  the  place  where  he  enjoys 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM         205 

the  same  respect  and  inviolability  which  men  ac- 
cord to  the  corpse  that  is  being  kept  for  burial! 
The  priest  does  not  believe  much  in  burials,  how- 
ever, and  that  for  the  very  good  and  sufficient 
reason  that  the  prophets  whom  he  slaughters 
never  stay  in  their  graves,  and  that  he  considers 
himself  much  more  respectably  alive  than  any  liv- 
ing prophet.  But  he  has  great  faith  in  the  prophet 
of  the  past.  For  he  knows  this  prophet  to  be 
alive,  though  his  father  slew  him.  The  prophet 
of  the  past  is  therefore  his  standing  miracle,  his 
prodigy,  and  more  impressive  to  him  than  even 
God  himself.  He  judges  others  by  him- 
self. How  could  a  clod  like  him  be  inspired? 
(How  indeed!)  Inspired  poetically,  or  along 
the  lines  of  art  or  science,  he  might  be,  but 
divinely  inspired — never!  He  dismisses  the  very 
thought  as  blasphemous.  God  and  he  have  no  in- 
tellectual intimacies,  though  he  may  feel  sure  they 
have  certain  emotional  ones.  They  never  see  each 
other  excepting  across  his  altar  fires,  and  then  as 
much  as  ever — more  than  ever,  perhaps — God  is 
far  off  in  his  heaven.  And  how  could  it  be  dif- 
ferent with  anyone  else?  So  he  can  never  bring 
himself  to  see  that  the  prophet  of  the  present  is 
indeed  the  greater  son  of  that  prophet  of  the 
past,  whose  monument  was  erected  yesterday  by 
his  father,  or  just  now  by  himself.  He  knows 
no  truth  but  old  truth,  and  no  inspiration  save 
that  of  the  past.  To  him  the  prophet  of  to-day 
is  but  a  fatherless  fraud  who  deserves  nothing 


206  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

better  than  the  worst  that  can  possibly  be  meas- 
ured out  to  him.  So  in  his  fine  respectability  he 
rises  to  the  height  of  misrepresenting  and  vilify- 
ing this  prophet.  In  his  malicious  hatred  he  can- 
not let  him  alone.  Growing  "frantic"  he  pur- 
sues1 him  "even  to  strange  cities,"  "breathing  mur- 
derous threats."  Meanwhile  the  pursued  and 
persecuted  prophet  himself  reasons,  expostulates, 
entreats,  making  his  unceasing  "appeal  to  men  of 
reason  and  religion,"  "suffers  because  God  wills 
it  so,  and  commits  his  life  into  the  hands  of  a 
faithful  creator."  (1  Pet.  4:19.) 

The  priest  of  each  generation  dies  to  enter  upon 
the  infamous  immortality  of  the  persecutor 
and  murderer  of  the  prophet,  secured  for  him  by 
that  son  of  his  who  builds  the  prophet's  monu- 
ment, and  writes  the  inscription  on  it  in  enduring 
brass.  The  prophet,  on  the  other  hand,  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  die.  Rather  he  lives  on,  mur- 
dered though  he  may  have  been,  wears  a  crown, 
and  enjoys  the  homage  and  obedience  of  a  con- 
stantly increasing  number. 

This  irrepressible  conflict  between  priest  and 
prophet  began  early.  Its  echoes  have  reverberated 
in  every  land  which  has  been  distinguished  by 
great  and  rapid  progress.  There  have  been 
priests  and  prophets  of  science  and  philosophy 
as  well  as  of  religion.  And  the  priest  and  prophet 
in  politics  constituted  in  Israel,  as  they  do  also 
to-day,  as  stern  a  fact  almost  as  the  priest  and 
prophet  in  religion;  for  whether  we  take  due  ac- 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM        207 

count  of  it  or  not,  the  one  actual  form  of  govern- 
ment is  the  theocracy,  where  every  human  legis- 
lator, judge  (and  magistrate,  including  the  sov- 
ereign himself,  is  but  an  official  under  law  to 
God.  There  is  absolutely  no  escape  from  this 
situation.  God  holds  peoples  and  their  officials 
alike  in  the  place  of  strictest  accountability  to 
himself  during  every  moment  of  their  worthy  or 
unworthy  tenure  of  the  positions  he  gives  them. 

I  am  now  to  deal  in  a  particular  rather  than 
a  general  way  with  the  priest  and  prophet  in 
their  relations  to  the  sacrificial  system  which  ob- 
tained under  Mosaism,  and  point  out,  if  I  can, 
how  Jesus  stands  associated  with  that  system. 

Jesus  is  at  once  "the  Apostle  and  High  Priest 
of  our  Religion."  (Heb.  3:1.)  Just  because  he 
is  the  High  Priest,  he  is  also  the  apostle — the 
man  sent,  approved  and  sustained  by  God  to 
speak  for  him  as  his  Prophet.  The  Priest  and 
the  Prophet  are  always  united  when  both  are  well 
informed  and  faithful.  Under  Mosaism  the  priest 
went  wrong.  It  was  his  departure  from  reality 
which  put  him  in  a  class  by  himself  and  precipi- 
tated that  conflict  between  him  and  the  prophet 
which  I  have  been  indicating.  In  Jesus  both  of- 
fices were  blended  and  harmonized.  This  is  not 
very  clearly  recognized.  I  shall  begin  here  by 
pointing  out  the  nature  of  the  conflict  between 
the  two  in  Israel  itself.  In  doing  this  it  will  be 
necessary  for  me  to  go  no  further  than  quote 
from  two  or  three  of  Israel's  strong  prophets. 


208  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

I  shall  begin  with  the  great  classical  passage 
in  Micah — "Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  the 
Lord,  and  bow  myself  before  the  high  God? 
Shall  I  come  before  him  with  burnt  offerings,  with 
calves  of  a  year  old?  Will  the  Lord  be  pleased 
with  thousands  of  rams,  or  with  ten  thousands 
of  rivers  of  oil?  Shall  I  give  my  first  born  for 
my  transgression,  the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the 
sin  of  my  soul? 

"He  hath  showed  me,  Oh  man,  what  is  good; 
and  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do 
justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly 
with  thy  God?"  Here  undoubtedly  the  substitu- 
tionary  idea  of  sacrifice  is  most  strongly  con- 
demned, the  prophet  going  even  so  far  as  to  make 
the  horrible  suggestion  that  when  a  man  has  once 
struck  out  on  that  line  he  should  rest  only  after 
he  has  offered  up  his  own  son — his  best  and  dear- 
est possession.  He  then  declares  that  such  sub- 
stitutionary  sacrifices  can  find  no  basis  in  the 
mind  and  will  of  God.  Jehovah  wanted  his  wor- 
shiper himself.  He  wanted  his  conscience,  his 
intellect,  his  will,  his  loving  devotion,  the  service 
of  all  his  powers  in  doing  all  the  good  among  his 
fellows  that  might  lie  within  his  reach.  What  to 
God  were  thousands  of  rams  or  ten  thousands  of 
rivers  of  oil  compared  with  that?  And  what  to 
God  was  the  man  who  went  the  length  of  present- 
ing his  son  as  a  substitutionary  sacrifice  but  a 
murderer  ? 

This   last   thought   is   the  one  which  seems   to 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM        209 

have  gripped  the  mind  of  Isaiah  in  such  a  painful 
way.  He  writhes  in  agony  as  he  writes  in  right- 
eous rage — 

"Hear  the  word  of  the  Lord,  ye  rulers  of  So- 
dom :  Give  ear  unto  the  law  of  our  God,  ye  people 
of  Gomorrah.  To  what  purpose  is  the  multitude 
of  your  sacrifices  unto  me?  Saith  the  Lord:  I 
am  full  of  the  burnt  offerings  of  rams,  and  the 
fat  of  fed  beasts ;  and  I  delight  not  in  the  blood 
of  bullocks  or  of  lambs  or  of  he-goats.  When 
ye  come  to  appear  before  me,  who  hath  required 
this  at  your  hand,  to  trample  my  courts?  Bring 
no  more  empty  oblations  .  .  .  your  hands 
are  full  of  blood."  Your  substitutionary  idea, 
which  has  led  you  to  thrust  your  bloody  offerings 
before  me,  instead  of  your  own  reverently  wor- 
shiping, devotedly  obedient  and  lovingly  right- 
eous selves,  has  made  your  very  slaughter  of 
your  sacrificial  beasts  an  abominable  series  of 
murders.  "Bring  no  more  empty  oblations;  in- 
cense is  an  abomination  unto  me ;  new  moon  and 
sabbath,  the  calling  of  assemblies — I  cannot  away 
with  iniquity  and  the  solemn  meeting.  Your  new 
moons  and  your  appointed  feasts  my  soul  hateth; 
they  are  a  trouble  unto  me;  I  am  weary  to  bear 
them.  And  when  ye  spread  forth  your  hands,  I 
will  hide  mine  eyes  from  you :  yea,  when  ye  make 
many  prayers,  I  will  not  hear :  your  hands  are  full 
of  blood. 

"Wash  you,  make  you  clean;  put  away  the 
evil  of  your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes ;  cease 


210  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

to  do  evil:  learn  to  do  well;  seek  judgment,  re- 
lieve the  oppressed,  judge  the  fatherless,  plead 
for  the  widow."  (Isa.  1:10-17.) 

Coming  down  across  the  centuries  we  find  the 
priest  still  standing  for  a  worship  and  a  holiness 
which  were  the  poorest  of  blasphemous  shams, 
and  the  second  Isaiah  exposing  him  in  the  very 
spirit  of  the  first — 

"To  this  man  will  I  look,  saith  the  Lord,  even 
to  him  that  is  poor  and  of  a  contrite  spirit,  and 
that  trembleth  at  my  word.  He  that  killeth  an 
ox"  (as  a  substitutionary  offering)  "is  as  he  that 
slayeth  a  man;  he  that  sacrificeth  a  lamb,  as  he 
that  breaketh  a  dog's  neck;  he  that  offereth  an 
oblation  as  he  that  offereth  swine's  blood;  he 
that  burneth  frankincense,  as  he  that  blesseth  an 
idol:  yea,  they  have  chosen  their  own  ways,  and 
their  soul  delighteth  in  their  abominations."  (Isu. 
66:3,  4*.)  And  thus  the  situation  continued, 
men  destroying  their  own  souls  and  committing 
spiritual  suicide  in  connection  with  the  most  sa- 
cred rites  of  their  religion.  And  thus  it  was  found 
by  Jesus  himself  and  those  who  after  him  laid 
the  foundations  of  the  Christian  church. 

We  are  not  left  in  any  doubt  on  the  question 
whether  Jesus  sided  with  the  priest  or  the  prophet 
in  the  long  controversy.  His  whole  life  and  teach- 
ing were  those  of  the  greatest  of  all  the  prophets. 
He  would  let  no  man  put  anything  whatever  in 
the  place  of  the  personal  righteousness  of  high 
ideals  and  an  unceasing  struggle  for  their  at- 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM         211 

tainment  which  his  own  life  exemplified.  For  the 
weakest  striver  he  had  the  tenderest  compassion 
and  the  most  abounding  encouragements,  but  his 
word  for  those  who  would  not  enter  the  holy 
strife  was  "judgment,"  while  that  for  the  wicked 
loiterer  was,  "I  know  you  not."  And  when  he 
was  called  upon  to  express  himself  on  the  very 
point  before  us  he  did  so  by  quoting  from  Hosea 
6:6,  with  a  reference  to  1  Sam.  15:22,  where  the 
words  are  given  in  which  the  prophet  adminis- 
tered his  rebuke  to  Saul,  when  that  king  at- 
tempted to  atone  for  his  royal  disobedience  by 
slaughtering  in  sacfrifice  thousands  of  bullocks 
and  sheep — 

"Go  and  learn  what  this  means — 
'I  desire  mercy  and  not  sacrifice'  " — 

a  godlike  manhood  and  no  substitute  for  it  what- 
ever. 

The  disciples  of  Jesus  were  continually  so  ham- 
pered by  the  priestly  idea  that  they  took  in  but 
slowly  the  full  meaning  of  their  Lord's  life  and 
words,  and  the  full  meaning  of  their  Lord's  life  and 
death.  In  their  writings  the  mighty  fact  set 
forth  by  the  prophet  is  often  badly  blurred  by 
the  misty  pretensions  of  the  priest.  I  shall  not 
attempt  here  to  make  anything  like  a  full  expo- 
sition of  this  feature  of  the  New  Testament,  but 
content  myself  with  briefly  indicating  it.  More 
than  a  dozen  theories  of  the  atonement  have  re- 
sulted from  this  entanglement  of  ideas  in  the 


212  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

apostolic  mind,  and  not  wholly  from  an  inca- 
pacity for  clear  thinking  on  the  part  of  subse- 
quent Christian  theologians.  "This  treasure  we 
have  in  these  earthen  vessels,  that  its  all-prevail- 
ing power  may  be  seen  to  come  from  God,  and  not 
to  be  our  own"  (2  Cor.  4:7),  is  a  word  of  Paul 
regarding  his  own  limitations  and  those  of  his 
fellow  apostles  and  Christian  co-workers  gener- 
ally; and  it  looked  in  directions  which  he  did  not 
perhaps  have  in  mind  when  he  wrote  it,  though 
he  was  well  aware  always  that  he  was  seeing  "in 
a  mirror,  dimly,"  and  that  his  knowledge  was  in- 
complete and  his  preaching  incomplete.  (1  Cor. 
13:12,  9.)  To  see  dimly  is  to  perceive  cloudily, 
and  even  misleadingly ;  and  no  teacher  can  instruct 
more  clearly  than  he  can  see  the  things  which  he 
attempts  to  convey  to  other  minds.  That  the 
writer  of  2nd  Peter  recognized  a  pronounced 
cloudiness  in  Paul's  writings  he  makes  abundantly 
evident  in  these  words — 

"There  are  some  things  in  them  difficult  to  un- 
derstand, etc."  The  precise  point  of  this  writer 
is  that  the  reader  of  Paul's  writings  needed  to  be 
well  versed  in  the  facts  and  main  purpose  of 
Christianity,  and  firmly  established  in  his  own 
experience  of  salvation  through  Jesus  Christ,  be- 
fore giving  himself  safely  to  the  perusal  of  some 
parts  of  Paul's  letters.  And  if  this  was  true  of 
the  most  intellectual  and  most  thoroughly  schooled 
apostle  of  all,  it  can  surely  be  no  offense  against 
the  rest  to  say  that  the  cloudiness  which  hinders 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM         213 

our  progress,  when  we  attempt  to  get  a  clear 
idea  of  the  system  of  thought  which  lies  behind 
their  words,  is  more  than  apparent.  They  found 
the  treasure  too  vast  to  be  set  forth  by  them  in 
an  orderly  fashion,  and  in  such  a  way  that  each 
portion  of  it  could  be  distinctly  seen  and  duly 
appreciated.  And  perhaps  the  old  priestly  con- 
ception of  things  proved  more  disabling  to  them 
than  any  other  thing  that  can  be  named. 

In  Peter  and  John  and  above  all  in  Paul  we 
see  the  great  truth  represented  by  the  prophets, 
including  Jesus  himself  struggling  and  stumbling 
towards  adequate  expression  through  the  rivers 
of  blood  shed  by  the  animal  victims  of  the  priest, 
and  the  blinding  smoke  from  his  altars,  or 
through  the  mists  which  enveloped  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  Roman  law  courts ;  and  never  abso- 
lutely arriving,  excepting  in  such  a  glorious  pas- 
sage as — 

"But  all  this  was  the  work  of  God,  who  recon- 
ciled us  to  himself  through  Christ,  and  gave  us 
the  ministry  of  Reconciliation — to  proclaim  that 
God,  in  Christ,  was  reconciling  the  world  to  him- 
self, not  reckoning  men's  offences  against  them, 
and  that  he  had  entrusted  us  with  the  Message 
of  this  reconciliation."  (2  Cor.  5  :18,  19.)  With 
the  second  Paul,  who  wrote  the  letter  to  the 
Hebrews,  it  was  different.  He,  too,  struggled 
and  stumbled  as  he  carried  his  message,  but  at 
length  he  arose  to  stumble  no  more,  and  arrived 
at  the  viewpoint  from  which  he  read  the  con- 


A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

sciousness  of  Jesus  as  no  man  before  him  had  done, 
and  as  few  have  done  since. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  as  soon  as  he  got 
this  vision  he  found  the  text  for  his  discourse  in 
the  Old  Testament.  So  human  was  the  heart  of 
Jesus  into  which  he  gazed,  that  he  found  himself 
able  to  put  into  his  lips  without  change  of  any 
kind  some  words  of  the  fortieth  Psalm  which  he 
took  from  the  Septuagint  version.  Hence  we 
read — 

"When  he  was  coming  into  the  world  the  Christ 
declared — 'Sacrifice  and  offering  thou  dost  not 
desire,  but  thou  hast  provided  for  me  a  body. 
Thou  dost  take  no  pleasure  in  burnt  offerings 
and  sacrifices  for  sin.  So  I  said,  "See,  I  have 
come"  (as  is  written  of  me  in  the  pages  of  the 
Book),  "To  do  thy  will,  O  God.'  " 

"First,"  he  writes,  "come  the  words — 'Thou 
dost  not  desire,  nor  dost  thou  take  pleasure  in, 
sacrifices,  offerings,  burnt  offerings,  and  sacri- 
fices for  sin'  (offerings  regularly  made  under  the 
Law)  and  then  there  is  added — 'See,  I  have  come 
to  do  thy  will.'  The  former  sacrifices  are  set  aside 
to  be  replaced  by  the  latter."  (Heb.  10:5-9.) 

"He  taketh  away  the  first  that  he  may  estab- 
lish the  second"  is  the  reading  of  the  authorized 
version.  With  this  reading  the  revision  of  1881 
entirely  agrees.  The  Twentieth  Century  tenta- 
tive edition  paraphrases  thus — "The  former 
statement  is  set  aside  to  be  replaced  by  the  lat- 
ter." Weymouth's  New  Testament  in  Modern 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM        £15 

Speech  gives  us,  "He  does  away  with  the  first  in 
order  to  establish  the  second;"  while  Lloyd  in 
his  Corrected  English  New  Testament  places  this 
passage  before  us  word  for  word  as  we  have  al- 
ready seen  it  in  the  authorized  and  revised  ver- 
sions— "He  taketh  away  the  first  that  he  may  es- 
tablish the  second." 

Now  what  does  this  writer  indicate  by  "the 
first"  and  "the  second?"  Does  "the  first"  stand 
for  the  priestly  idea  of  substitutionary  offerings, 
and  "the  second"  for  the  prophet's  idea  that  the 
one  offering  and  sacrifice  acceptable  to  God  is 
the  offerer  himself  in  all  his  various  capacities 
for  worship  and  service?  Or  does  he  mix  and 
mingle  and  confuse  things,  so  that  his  readers 
must  still  keep  asking  with  which  of  more  than  a 
dozen  theories  of  the  atonement  he  stands  asso- 
ciated? We  shall  see. 

I  refuse  to  devour  time  here  in  an  attempt  to 
find  a  safe  way  through  the  theory-permeated 
intricacies  of  the  various  translations  which  lie 
before  me.  No  man  can  ever  set  forth  God's 
truth,  or  anybody  else's,  in  a  translation,  until 
that  truth  lies  in  still  lake-like  clearness  in  his 
own  mind  and  heart.  Nothing  can  be  more  mis- 
leading than  texts  which  have  been  thrown  out  of 
all  true  perspective  by  the  violence  which  has  been 
quite  unconsciously  visited  upon  them  by  dogma- 
burdened  translators.  Our  writer  indicates  the 
successive  steps  and  processes  by  means  of  which 
a  sinner  may  move  up  from  the  horrible  pit  and 


216  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

miry  clay  of  his  iniquities  into  the  loftiest  abid- 
ing places  of  saint-hood.  What  are  these  steps 
and  processes?  Let  us  follow  him  as  he  points 
them  out. 

The  first  step  is  that  of  entering  into  the  will 
of  God  as  he  sees  Jesus  himself  did — in  desire  and 
purpose,  first,  and  then  as  occasion  and  oppor- 
tunity arise,  in  word  and  deed.  It  is  by  this 
will  of  God  that  we  are  purified,  sanctified,  set 
apart  for  a  life  of  strength  and  sweetness,  of 
powerful  acts  and  tenderest  compassions,  like  that 
of  him  whose  followers  we  become  the  moment  we 
enter  into  that  will  after  him. 

Each  sinner  who  takes  this  step,  takes  it  be- 
cause he  has  become  the  subject  of  a  process  which 
is  set  up  and  maintained  by  God  himself.  The 
sialvation  of  mankind  has  its  place  in  the  educa- 
tional programme  of  the  universe.  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  supreme*  object  lesson  in  the  way  of  a  prop- 
erly ordered  human  life.  In  him  there  were  gath- 
ered up  and  centered  all  that  was  true  and  vic- 
torious in  the  life  of  men  as  that  life  ought  to 
be,  and  in  the  principles  which  should  govern  it. 
The  very  heart  of  his  heart  was  a  love,  which  was 
absolutely  without  limit.  Every  sinner  loves  to 
be  loved,  and  most  of  all  to  be  loved  by  the  holi- 
est, not  so  much  in  spite  of,  as  because  of,  the  fact, 
which  is  so  painfully  clear  to  himself,  that  he  is 
bad  and  hopelessly  lost  as  far  as  self-rescue  is 
concerned.  Mother  love,  wife  love,  child  love, 
have  a  certain  redeeming  power,  but  the  source 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM 

of  them  all,  as  represented  by  God  in  Christ,  far 
surpasses  them  in  their  best  possible  combina- 
tion. The  holiest  love  must  always  be  the 
mightiest.  To  look  upon  the  holiest  love,  and  to 
perceive  that  its  infinite  eyes,  fixed  upon  me,  and 
overflowing  with  tears  because  I  am  not  holy  too, 
but  sinful  and  unworthy  and  undone,  are  forever 
those  of  him  whose  human  hands,  reached  down 
for  my  uplifting,  I  nailed  to  the  cross,  and  that 
those  same  pierced  hands,  mightier  than  ever,  are 
gripping  me  even  now  to  carry  me  up  out  of  all 
my  sins  and  miseries ;  is  to  realize  to  some  extent 
that  this  same  holiness  of  love  is  being  carved 
deeply  upon  my  consciousness,  as  the  one  law 
which  embraces  all  the  legislation  which  should 
govern  my  life  now  and  always.  It  was  because 
our  writer  vividly  realized  this  for  himself  that 
he  was  so  deeply  impressed  by  these  words  from 
Jeremiah  31 :33 — 

"This  is  the  Covenant  that  I  will  make  with  them 

After  those  days/'  says  the  Lord: 
"I  will  impress  my  laws  on  their  hearts 

And  will  inscribe  them  on  their  minds." 

Now,  also,  because  he  perceived  a  certain  se- 
quence, hidden  from  the  priest  but  clear  and  un- 
mistakable to  the  prophet,  he  broke  Jeremiah's 
word  into  two  portions,  and  presented  these  in  sep- 
aration from  each  other.  This  is  how  he  put  his 
case — "We  have  also  the  testimony  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  For,  after  saying — 'This  is  my  cove- 


218  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

riant,  etc,'  then  we  have — 'And  their  sins  and 
their  iniquities  I  will  no  longer  remember.' ' 

Now  if  this  language  means  anything  at  all, 
it  means!  that  in  the  opinion  of  this  writer,  the  one 
condition  upon  which  God  forgives  sins  is  the 
sinner's  complete  surrender  and  consecration  to 
his  will.  And  he  teaches  that  this  surrender  and 
consecration  are  a  human  act,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  outcome  of  a  divine  process,  on  the  other. 
The  sinner  surrenders  and  consecrates  himself 
to  God's  will,  because  God  has  made  that  will  ap- 
pear the  supreme  thing  to  him.  When  this  act 
of  surrender  and  consecration  has  been  definitely 
entered  into,  God  writes  his  will  still  more  defi- 
nitely and  deeply  upon  both  heart  and  mind. 
And  when  he  has  by  this  process  actually  blotted 
out  the  sins  of  the  man,  then  and  not  till  then,  he 
lifts  up  the  light  of  his  countenance  upon  him  and 
blesses  him  with  the  peace  which  passes  all  under- 
standing. That  is  to  say,  God  never  proceeds 
blindly  in  his  work  of  saving  a  man,  never  takes 
anything  for  granted,  never  leaves  anything  un- 
done which  needs  doing,  never  deceives  himself  at 
any  point;  and  he  never  slights  or  deceives  the 
man  with  whom  he  is  dealing,  but  demands  and 
obtains  the  exercise  of  out  and  out  good  faith 
both  in  Himself  and  in  the  sinner  whom  he  is 
transforming  into  one  of  his  saints.  And  this 
clear  teaching  alone  is  true  to  fact.  All  else  is 
either  mystifying  or  wholly  false. 

Forgiveness  means  the  breaking  forth  of  God's 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM 

smile  upon  the  sinner  and  the  breaking  by  God 
of  the  enslaving  chains  of  his  sins,  when  with  much 
heartbreak  or  with  little  he  has  turned  his  back 
upon  his  wrong  past  to  enter  into  the  whole  will 
of  God  so  far  as  that  will  has  become  known  to 
him.  God's  forgiveness  is  no  cold  legal  trans- 
action. It  is  glowingly  personal  and  throbbingly 
heart  to  heart.  It  is  a  purely  Thou  and  I  act 
and  experience.  It  is  the  Father's  rapturous  em- 
brace of  his  son  who  was  lost,  and  the  joyful  cry 
— "I  will  give  thanks  unto  thee,  O  Lord;  for 
though  thou  wast  angry  with  me,  thine  anger  is 
turned  away,  and  thou  comfortest  me.  Behold, 
God  is  my  salvation ;  I  will  trust  and  not  be 
afraid;  for  the  Lord  Jehovah  is  my  strength  and 
my  song:  and  he  is  become  my  salvation."  (Isa. 
12:1-3.) 

"Free  from  the  Law,  O  happy  condition,"  etc., 
is  a  song  in  which  the  priest  rejoices  in  the  se- 
curity and  peace  of  his  refuge  of  lies.  The 
prophet  dwelling  in  the  place  of  real  safety  be- 
side his  Lord  and  Master,  sings  instead  the  very 
words  of  that  Master  himself  as  they  appear  in 
the  Hebrew  version  of  the  Old  Testament — 

"I  delight  to  do  thy  will,  O  my  God; 
Yea,  thy  law  is  within  my  heart/'  (Psa.  40:8.) 

"My  God,  thie  spring  of  all  my  Joys, 
The  life  of  my  delights, 
The  glory  of  my  brightest  days 
And  comfort  of  my  nights." 


220  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

"Long  my  imprisoned  spirit  lay, 
Fast  bound  in  sin  and  nature's  night; 
Thine  eye  diffused  a  quickening  ray; 
I  woke;  the  dungeon  flamed  with  light; 
My  chains  fell  off,  my  heart  was  free; 
I  rose,  went  forth  and  followed  Thee." 

The  prophet  rejoices  in  God  and  in  his  law,  be- 
cause he  has  been  brought  into  the  life  of  obedi- 
ent service  towards  God,  knows  that  he  is  co- 
working  with  God,  and  that  through  entering  into 
his  will,  he  has  entered  into  Himself,  where  his 
life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God.  He  does  not  live 
in  fiction  but  in  fact,  and  his  holiness  is  not  con- 
structive or  imaginary  but  real — the  very  holi- 
ness of  God,  translated  into  the  terms  of  our  ig- 
norance and  weakness,  to  be  sure,  but  growingly 
worthy  of  its  source. 

So  our  author  is  perfectly  consistent  when, 
coming  to  a  definite  discussion  of  the  faith  which 
saves  men,  he  makes  no  mention  of  their  past  sins 
or  the  consequences  and  penalties  connected  with 
them.  His  face  is  not  towards  the  past  at  all, 
like  that  of  the  priest.  He  had  heard  his  Mas- 
ter's— 

"Follow  me,  and  leave  the  dead  to  bury  their 
dead."  (Matt.  8:22.)  In  his  view,  to  be  a  fol- 
lower of  Jesus  was  not  to  mourn  over  one's  low 
past  and  plead  for  an  impossible  remission  of 
the  penalties  attached  to  its  sins,  but  to  break 
away  from  it  utterly  and  at  once,  and,  with  his 
face  towards  the  glowing  light,  join  his  Lord  in 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM 

his  heartily  chosen  and  divinely  given  task.  So 
his  definition  of  "faith"  declares  it  to  be  "the  hu- 
man substructure,  foundation,  or  source  of  things 
hoped  for,  and  a  conviction  of  the  reality  of 
things  which  we  do  not  see."  (Heb.  11:1.)  As 
he  brings  before  us  the  name  and  deed  of  each  of 
his  long  list  of  noted  men  of  faith  we  gather  the 
characteristics  of  this  faith  from  the  things  which 
it  wrought  through  them,  and  are  prepared  to 
say  that  it  is  (1)  the  vision  of  God  as  the  teacher, 
inspirer  and  enabler  of  men  in  connection  with  the 
accomplishment  of  his  vast  redeeming  purposes, 
(2)  the  quitting  of  sin  and  lower  good  for  the 
highest  life  and  service  to  which  men  are  called, 
and  (3)  a  hearty  consecration  to  God's  whole  will 
as  far  as  it  is  known.  In  other  words,  saving 
faith  is  the  source  of  the  highest  devotion  and  the 
most  glorious  achievement — the  very  heart  of 
hearts  of  the  hero  and  the  saint.  A  vast  cloud  of 
such  heroes  and  saints  of  the  past  surrounds  us, 
he  declares,  but  we  are  to  fix  our  gaze,  not  on  any 
one  of  these,  but  on  Jesus.  He  far  surpasses 
them  all.  He  is  "the  File-leader,  the  Prince 
Leader,  the  Leader  and  Perfect  Example  of,  or 
in,  our  faith" — our  religion  of  enthusiastic  devo- 
tion to  the  whole  will  of  God,  and  blessed  expe- 
rience of  his  purifying  and  enabling  grace.  So 
in  his  view  that  faith  of  Abraham,  which  "was  re- 
garded by  God  as  righteousness,"  was  so  regarded 
because  it  was  righteousness  itself — righteous- 
ness in  vision,  in  desire,  in  purpose,  in  consecra- 


222  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

tion,  in  endeavor — the  one  human  substructure 
or  source  for  all  possible  righteousness  of  word 
and  deed.  So  also  is  the  faith  of  each  truly 
Christian  believer — each  true  son  of  Abraham. 
All  true  faith  is  the  faith  of  Jesus.  Abraham  saw 
Jesus's  day  because  he  devoted  himself  to  God's 
will  in  the  same  manner,  though  so  much  less  per- 
fectly; and  he  was  glad  with  the  gladness  of  one 
whom  God,  therefore,  acknowledged  as  his  friend, 
while  Jesus  rejoiced  with  the  larger  joy  arising 
from  being  owned  by  God  as  his  Son. 

This  idea  of  Jesus  as  our  Leader  and  Perfect 
Example  is  made  very  prominent  in  this  letter. 
Indeed,  when  the  writer  deals  with  the  saving 
efficacy  of  the  life  of  Jesus  as  that  life  stands 
related  to  ours,  he  places  it  in  the  very  forefront. 
It  is  through  this  leadership  that  he  is  our 
Savior  at  all,  and  through  this  leadership  that 
he  is  our  Savior  into  Heaven  itself.  When  this 
writer  took  up  the  unchangeableness  of  God's 
purpose  and  the  unchangeableness  of  that  oath 
which  God  took  when  he  swore  by  himself,  as  an 
absolutely  safe  ground  for  our  human  hope,  he 
declared  that — 

"This  hope  is  a  very  anchor  for  our  souls, 
secure  and  strong,  and  it  'reaches  into  the  Sanc- 
tuary that  lies  behind  the  Curtain,'  where  Jesus, 
our  Forerunner,  has  entered  on  our  behalf." 
(Chap.  6:16-20.)  He  says  again— 

"For  it  was  not  into  a  sanctuary  made  by 
human  hands,  which  merely  foreshadowed  the 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM         223 

true  one,  that  Christ  entered,  but  into  Heaven 
itself,  that  he  might  appear  in  the  presence  of 
God  on  our  behalf."  (Chap.  9:24.)  And  finally 
he  says — 

"Therefore,  Brothers,  we  may  enter  the  Sanc- 
tuary with  confidence,  in  virtue  of  the  blood  of 
.Jesus,  by  the  way  which  he  inaugurated  for  us — 
a  new  and  living  way,  a  way  through  the  Sanc- 
tuary Curtain  (that  is,  his  human  nature)." 
(Chap.  10:19,  20.)  I 

Now  what  is  the  gist  of  this  teaching?  May 
it  not  be  expressed  thus?  Our  human  nature, 
because  of  its  sinfulness,  existed  as  an  excluding 
curtain  to  prevent  us  from  entering  heaven. 
The  Son  of  God  became  Jesus,  the  Son  of  Mary, 
and  in  this  manner  placed  the  curtain  of  our 
human  nature  between  him  and  heaven.  But  by 
conquering  its  sinfulness,  by  "offering  himself  up 
to  God  as  a  victim  without  blemish,"  he  opened 
up  a  way,  a  way  which  no  man  had  ever  trod  be- 
fore, "a  new  and  living  way,"  the  way  of  years 
of  unbroken,  living  human  devotion  to  the  will 
of  his  Father,  terribly  difficult  though  that  de- 
votion became,  and  so  passed  into  heaven  "with 
his  own  blood,"  his  life  of  utter  consecration, 
not  as  our  substitute  (who  wants  a  substitute 
when  the  problem  and  prospect  is  that  of  getting 
into  heaven?)  but  "on  our  behalf"  as  our  Fore- 
runner, "Our  Leader,"  our  Opener  of  the  Way. 
And  what  is  the  rest  of  the  story  but  that  God 
in  Christ  was  reconciling  the  world  to  himself, 


A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

and  is  reconciling  the  world  to  himself  that  he 
may  lead  to  glory  many  sons,  whom  Jesus  will 
not  be  ashamed  to  call  his  brothers,  since  each 
one  of  them  will  "by  virtue  of  his  blood" — his 
life  of  utter  consecration  to  his  Father — have 
passed  for  himself  through  this  new  and  living 
way  of  utter  obedience  to  God,  which  Jesus  so 
gloriously  inaugurated.  This  way  was  an  ab- 
solute fact  for  him  and  only  relatively  so  for 
us.  But  our  hearts  are  reassured  when  we  turn 
again  to  the  words  of  Paul — 

"God,  in  Christ,  was  (and  is)  reconciling  the 
world  to  himself,  not  reckoning  men's  offenses 
against  them."  God  requires  of  each  man  only 
as  much  as  through  his  help  he  can  render. 

A  truer  word  was  never  written  than  this  of 
Principal  Forsyth  in  his  Cruciality  of  the  Cross — • 
"The  atonement  does  not  procure  grace,  it  flows 
from  grace."  It  was  because  God  loves  us  that 
Jesus  died  on  the  cross,  and  not  because  Jesus 
died  on  the  cross  that  God  loves  us.  This  com- 
pelling, transforming,  holy,  reasonable  and  al- 
lowance-making love  is  the  one  ultimate  fact. 
God  is  love. 

What  then  is  the  relation  borne  by  Jesus 
to  the  sacrificial  system?  The  true  one — the 
one  maintained  by  the  prophet  against  the  priest 
through  all  the  generations.  No  offering  pre- 
sented by  man  can  ever  be  substutionary,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  God  can  never  cheat  himself 
out  of  his  own  rights.  The  continuous  Creator 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM         225 

of  sinful  men  makes  no  claim  upon  them  for  any 
further  response  to  his  holiness  than  that  which 
he  inspires  and  enables  them  to  reach.  By  his 
own  choice  he  is  engaged  in  the  age-long  work 
of  lifting  them  out  of  their  sin  into  his  own 
holiness,  out  of  their  iniquity  into  his  own  recti- 
tude. Slowly  he  has  been  giving  height  to  their 
moral  standards ;  and  that  this  slow  progress 
may  be  as  rapid  as  possible,  he  has  given  his 
divine  Son  to  be  our  human  Leader  and  Perfect 
Example.  His  sacrifice  was  an  offering  up  of 
himself  in  a  life  of  obedience  to  the  utmost.  He 
attempted  no  substitution  on  his  own  account  but 
turned  away  from  it  with  his  whole  heart  and 
soul.  He  did  this  as  our  Forerunner.  He  did 
away  with  the  first;  he  established  the  second. 
It  was  when  he  offered  up  himself  as  a  sacrifice 
to  God  in  an  obedience  which  was  unto  death 
that  he  became  our  Prince  Leader.  We  are  true 
followers  of  his  when  we  also  enter  into  the  whole 
will  of  God  as  far  and  as  fast  as  it  becomes'  known 
to  us.  True  religion  is  no  empty  dream.  We 
are  members  of  this  new  yet  ancient  order  of 
sacrificing  priests  when  we  completely  obey  Paul's 
exhortation — 

"I  entreat  you  then,  Brothers,  by  the  mercies 
of  God,  to  offer  your  bodies  as  a  living  holy  sacri- 
fice, acceptable  to  God,  for  this  is  your  rational 
worship."  (Rom.  12:1.) 

In  religion,  as  in  everything  else,  all  that  is 
irrational  is  also  false.  The  one  absolutely  re- 


A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

quired  condition  of  forgiveness  is  acceptance  of 
God's  whole  will  as  far  as  it  is  known.  First 
God's  law  written  on  the  heart,  then  God's  for- 
giveness. 

Before  closing  here  we  may,  I  think,  get  a 
clear  glimpse  of  the  true  use  and  advantage  of 
the  ancient  sacrificial  system,  and  so  of  the  un- 
speakable benefits  arising  from  the  sacrifice  which 
Jesus,  the  Son  of  God,  made  of  himself  on  our 
behalf.  It  has  always  been,  and  it  is  to-day, 
the  intention  and  spirit  of  the  offerer  which  de- 
termine whether  his  offering  is  to  prove  a  bless- 
ing or  a  curse  to  him.  Abel's  sacrifice  was  ac- 
cepted and  Cain's  rejected  by  God  with  strict 
reference  to  the  thought  and  temper  of  each. 
So  was  it  also  with  Abraham,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  King  Saul  on  the  other.  Let  us  seek  for 
the  difference  between  these  worshipers. 

The  outstanding  rule  touching  living  offerings 
was  that  they  should  be  perfect  representatives 
of  their  kind.  If  the  offering  was  a  bullock,  he 
had  to  be  a  perfect  bullock;  if  a  lamb,  it  had  to 
be  a  perfect  lamb.  Each  was  required  to  rep- 
resent the  life  of  its  kind  at  its  best,  and  so  to 
be  fitted  to  suggest  to  the  mind  of  the  offerer, 
in  the  most  lively  way,  the  idea  and  duty  of  a 
perfect  life  before  God  on  his  own  account. 

Now  each  offerer  would  necessarily  maintain 
one  of  three  possible  attitudes  towards  the  per- 
fect offering  which  he  presented.  The  man  who 
was  a  pure  formalist  would  present  his  offering 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM         227 

with  no  other  thought  than  that  his  act  held  a 
proper  and  rightful  place  in  connection  with  the 
observances  of  his  religion ;  and  when  he  was 
through  with  his  part  of  the  ceremony  he  would 
retire  with  a  comfortable  sense  of  duty  done. 
The  other  two  would  think  more  deeply,  yet  their 
thoughts  would  be  the  very  antipodes  of  each 
other.  The  thought  of  one  would  be  the  thought 
of  the  priest,  the  thought  of  the  other  the 
thought  of  the  prophet.  The  man  with  the 
priest's  thought  would  bring  his  perfect  offering 
and  say — "O  my  God,  I  am  imperfect  and  sinful 
and  must  so  remain,  but  I  have  come  with  the  per- 
fect offering  appointed  by  thyself.  Graciously 
accept  me  as  I  am  in  view  of  its  perfect  merits, 
even  as  thou  hast  promised  and  agreed  to  do. 
Be  as  good  as  thy1  word,  O  holy  Lord  God !"  And 
this  man  with  the  priest's  thought  in  him  would 
see  nothing  absurd,  outrageous  or  blasphemous 
in  his  prayer.  On  the  contrary  it  would  strike 
him  as  being  quite  modestly  and  reverently 
orthodox ! 

But  see!  the  man  with  the  prophet's  thought 
has  come  with  his  perfect  offering.  Listen !  for 
he  is  in  the  attitude  of  prayer — 

"Blessed  be  thy  name,  O  God  of  my  salvation, 
who  hast  heard  my  prayer  and  been  merciful  to 
me.  All  my  help  comes  from  thee.  Thou  dost 
strengthen  me  to  fulfill  thy  word  and  keep  thy 
law.  Thou  dost  comfort  me  greatly,  lifting  up 
the  light  of  thy  countenance  upon  me.  Yet  my 


228  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

way  is  not  perfect  before  thee,  and  it  is  with 
earnest  desire  and  humility  that  I  present  to  thee 
this  perfect  offering,  for  it  tells  me  that  nothing 
befits  me  short  of  a  like  perfection.  'Teach 
me  and  guide  me.'  'Let  the  words  of  my  mouth 
and  the  meditations  of  my  heart  all  become  ac- 
ceptable in  thy  sight,  O  Lord  my  Strength  and 
my  Redeemer.' '  Or,  coming  for  the  first  time, 
he  cries — "God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner,  and 
lead  me  into  thy  whole  will." 

This  man's  perfect  bullock  and  lamb  awaken 
in  him  the  cry  for  and  the  expectation  of  a  like 
perfection.  Neither  is,  or  can  ever  be,  accepted 
in  his  place.  Under  God's  righteous  rule  there 
can  be  no  substitutions.  A  beast's  perfections 
accepted  by  God  in  the  place  of  a  man's!  Yet 
the  perfections  of  the  beast  can  give  to  the  man 
very  convincing  testimony  that  he  should  place 
nothing  short  of  perfection  before  himself  as  his 
goal.  And  this  was  the  highest  office  given  by 
God  to  the  ancient  sacrificial  system.  It  was  to 
be  a  continual  reminder  that  the  God  who  had 
co-worked  with  the  perfect  beast  in  the  attain- 
ment of  its  perfection,  was  also  co-working  with 
every  man  whose  heart  cried  out  after  a  com- 
plete human  life  as  its  chief  good  next  to  God 
himself.  And  because  the  perfection  of  the  brute 
was  too  low  to  sufficiently  inspire  this  desire  and 
encourage  this  expectation  in  us,  God  gave  us 
his  Son  to  be  our  perfect  human  example  and 
representative.  And  it  is  through  inspiring  and 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM         229 

encouraging  to  victory  our  desire  for  a  perfect 
life  before  God,  that  Jesus  becomes  our  Savior 
to  the  uttermost.  (Heb.  10:14-22.)  The  priest 
has  called  him  our  substitute  and  has  thus  largely 
robbed  him  of  his  glory  by  robbing  his  obedience 
unto  death  of  its  largest  and  worthiest  results. 
But  the  day  of  the  Christian  prophet  is  fast 
dawning.  We  are  moving  up  out  of  the  shadows 
into  Christlike  reality. 

Under  the  Christianity  of  Jesus  Christ, 
as  set  forth  in  this  portion  of  the  letter  to 
the  .Hebrews,  the  genuine  Christian  is  the 
prophet  who  is  a  priest,  and  the  priest  who 
is  also  a  prophet.  Peter  had  the  same  idea. 
Listen ! — 

"Come  to  Jesus  then,  as  to  a  living  stone,  re- 
jected indeed,  by  men,  but  in  God's  eyes  choice 
and  precious ;  and,  as  living  stones,  form  your- 
selves into  a  spiritual  House,  to  be  a  consecrated 
Priesthood,  for  the  offering  of  spiritual  sacri- 
fices that  will  be  acceptable  to  God  through  Jesus 
Christ."  (I  Pet.  2:4,  5.)  Peter  saw,  too,  that 
this  new  order  of  prophet-priests  or  priest- 
prophets  was  the  true  Israel  and  therefore,  the 
very  heart  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  upon  earth. 
Listen  again — 

"But  you  are  'a  chosen  race,  a  royal  priest- 
hood, a  consecrated  nation,  God's  own  People,' 
entrusted  with  the  proclamation  of  the  goodness 
of  him  who  called  you  out  of  Darkness  into  his 
wonderful  Light."  (I  Pet.  2:9.)  To  this  also 


230  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

the  writer  of  The  Revelation  gives  his  heartiest 
assent — 

"He  made  us  'a  Kingdom  of  Priests  in  the  serv- 
ice of  God,'  his  Father."  (Rev.  1:6.)  (See  also 
5:9,  10.) 

Naturally  the  final  conclusion  of  this  second 
Paul  is  that  the  sacrifice  which  Jesus  made  of 
himself  was  the  final  representative  one.  T%e 
beast  was  too  poor,  but  The  Man  left  nothing 
further  to  be  accomplished.  He  had  constituted 
in  himself  all  that  God  required  him  to  be  as  a 
man  living  his  own  personal  life.  He  had  entered 
into  the  whole  will  of  his  Father  on  his  own  ac- 
count. He  had  entered  into  it  also  as  the  Fore- 
runner and  Prince  Leader  of  the  race.  He  had 
made  it  at  once  the  duty  and  the  privilege  of 
each  man  to  enter  into  that  will  after  him. 
Growing  numbers  were  actually  doing  this  with 
their  whole  hearts  and  souls.  As  priests  under 
Jesus,  our  "great  High  Priest,"  each  of  these 
had  made  or  was  still  making,  a  complete  sacri- 
fice of  himself,  including  his  body,  to  God.  It 
was  in  view  of  this  fact  in  its  initial  stage  that 
God  had  forgiven  them,  and  so  would  it  be  to 
the  very  end  with  all  who  would  take  the  same 
path. 

That  loss  of  the  sense  of  sin  over  which  many 
are  mourning  to-day,  is  rather  a  fact  for  re- 
joicing. This  sense  of  sin  belongs  to  the  priest. 
To  him  it  has  been  a  great  asset  and  he  has  often 
cultivated  it  in  others  for  his  own  material  en- 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  SYSTEM         231 

richment.  We  remember  Eli's  arrogant  sons 
and  their  flesh-hook  with  three  prongs,  which  they 
did  not  always  care  to  use.  (I  Sam.  2:12-17.) 
We  recall  also  some  more  recent  history.  In  the 
place  of  this  abidingly  distressing  sense  of  sin  in 
Christendom,  there  is  fast  waking  up  the  genu- 
ine Christian  prophet's  passion  for  righteousness, 
individual  and  social.  So  men  are  all  the  time 
becoming  more  practically  and,  therefore,  more 
truly  the  followers  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
This  fact  will  require  the  attention  of  a  separate 
chapter. 

Some  one  may  say  that  this  chapter  is  a  plea 
for  the  moral  influence  theory  of  the  atonement. 
How  we  delight  to  label  the  infinite  with  our 
pretty  little  tags!  This  chapter  has  been  writ- 
ten in  advocacy  of  the  physical,  intellectual, 
emotional,  volitional,  moral,  spiritual,  human  and 
divine  fact  of  the  whole  saving  work  of  him 
who  said  through  his  prophet,  and  then  through 
his  Son — "I  desire  mercy  and  not  sacrifice" — a 
glorious  Christlike  humanity,  and  nothing  what- 
ever in  lieu  of  it.  God  has  of  his  own  motion 
been  making  men  as  they  are,  and  he  has  at  the 
same  time  been  making  them  through  Jesus 
Christ  all  he  wishes  them  to  be.  He  has  been 
much  hindered  by  our  false  notions.  But  the 
whole  work  is  his  and  he  will  carry  it  to  its  full 
completion. 


XIV 

JESUS  AND  THE  SENSE  OF  SIN 

The  eye  of  the  priest  is  forever  on  each  sinful 
past  as  it  matures.  It  is  on  this  account  that  he 
can  never  close  his  confessional,  or  leave  his 
penances  behind  him,  or  consider  his  sacrificial 
rites  at  an  end.  He  fancies  he  can  make  each 
wrong  past  right,  or  cover  it  up  from  the  eyes 
of  God,  by  means  of  the  substitutionary  "sacrifice 
oblation  and  satisfaction"  which  he  offers.  He 
may  even  fancy  that  divine  forgiveness  means  the 
complete  removal  of  sin's  penalty.  But  deliver- 
ance from  a  life  of  conscious  sinning  he  regards 
as  a  practical  impossibility.  He  must  always 
have  a  bad  past  to  deal  with. 

The  prophet  knows  better.  Proceeding  scien- 
tifically, that  is  to  say,  dismissing  all  arbitrary 
theorizing  and  all  crooked  textual  interpreta- 
tions, he  notes  the  facts  of  life  as  they  appear 
upon  its  very  surface  even,  and  knows  that  no 
divine  forgiveness  ever  breaks  the  indissoluble 
bond  with  which  God  himself  has  joined  sin  and 
suffering  for  the  present  life  at  least,  and  there- 
fore that  the  afflicting  and  disabling  effects  of 
each  man's  sins  can  be  traced  in  his  body,  his 
intellect  and  his  painfully  accusing  conscience, 
232 


JESUS  AND  THE  SENSE  OF  SIN 

after  his  forgiveness  as  well  as  before  it.  The 
prophet  can  also  warn  the  forgiven  sinner  that 
some  of  the  consequences  of  his  sins  may  curse 
his  offspring,  and  even  some  of  his  acquaintances 
and  their  descendants,  for  generations ;  and  that 
his  own  deliverance  in  the  same  directions,  so  far 
as  it  is  possible  at  all,  can  be  reached  only 
through  the  steady  observance  by  himself  of 
God's  various  laws  for  the  health  of  the  body, 
the  mind  and  the  conscience.  But  he  knows,  too, 
that  our  salvation  from  lives  of  conscious  sinning 
is  a  most  prominent  and  essential  part  of  the  re- 
deeming work  of  Jesus. 

The  divine  forgiveness  of  sins  is  first  of  all  a 
deliverance  from  sinning.  It  leaves  no  drunkard 
still  a  slave  to  his  cups,  no  debauchee  in  thraldom 
to  his  vices,  and  no  sinner  whatever  the  bondman 
it  found  him.  God  accomplishes  this  deliverance 
by  addressing  himself  through  the  morally 
awakened  intellect  to  the  affections  and  the  will. 
Through  causing  the  sinner  to  perceive  the  utter 
badness  of  sin  in  the  light  of  his  own  holy  love, 
he  changes  his  enjoyment  of  it  into  discomfort, 
and  his  dislike  of  goodness  in  its  chief  demands 
into  such  a  longing  for  it  as  cannot  be  satisfied 
short  of  complete  obedience  to  God.  Along  with 
this  revelation  of  sin  and  holiness  God  shows  him- 
self in  Jesus  as  everywhere  present  to  "set  free 
from  the  control  of  Sin"  the  sinner  in  whom  he 
is  at  work,  and  cause  him  to  "become  a  servant  to 
Righteousness."  (Rom.  6:18.)  Thus  encour- 


234  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

aged  by  the  divine  inworking  the  sinner  delivers 
himself  over  to  God's  will  as  far  as  he  knows  it 
through  Jesus,  and  "recognizes  the  truth  that 
his  old  self  is  crucified  with  Christ,  in  order  that 
the  body,  the  stronghold  of  Sin,  may  be  rendered 
powerless,  so  that  he  may  no  longer  be  a  slave 
to  Sin."  (Rom.  6:6.)  Then  the  testimony  he 
and  his  fellow  believers  adopt  is  this — 

"Thank  God,  there  is  deliverance  through 
.Jesus  Christ,  Our  Lord.  .  .  .  What  the  law 
could  not  do,  in  so  far  as  our  earthly  nature 
weakened  its  action,  God  did,  by  sending  his  Son, 
with  a  nature  resembling  our  sinful  na- 
ture. .  .  .  He  condemned  sin  in  that  earthly 
nature,  so  that  the  requirements  of  the  Law  might 
be  satisfied  in  us  who  live  now  in  obedience,  not  to 
our  earthly  natures,  but  to  the  Spirit.  There 
is,  therefore,  now  no  condemnation  for  those  who 
are  in  union  with  Christ  Jesus;  for  through  our 
union  with  Christ  Jesus  the  Law  of  the  life-giv- 
ing Spirit  has  set  us  free  from  the  Law  of  Sin 
and  Death."  (Rom.  7:25;  8:1-4.) 

I  have  placed  the  first  verse  of  the  eighth 
chapter  last  here  to  show  as  clearly  as  possible 
the  precise  nature  and  force  of  Paul's  reasoning. 
His  teaching  at  this  point  is  the  same  as  that  of 
the  tenth  chapter  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews. 
He  could  not  write  of  saving  faith  without  se- 
rious obscurity,  but  he  could  read  its  holy  fruits 
out  of  his  own  lofty  experience.  By  its  means 
he  had  been  brought  into  "union  with  Christ 


JESUS  AND  THE  SENSE  OF  SIN   235 

Jesus."  By  God's  lovingkindness  he  had  been 
saved  through  it.  (Eph.  2:8.)  "By  God's 
lovingkindness,"  that  is  to  say,  he  had  through 
it  been  introduced  to  the  place  where  he  found 
himself  constantly  united  with  Jesus  in  the  de- 
claration to  God  himself — : 

"See,  I  have  come  to  do  thy  will."  (Heb.  10 :9.) 
He  had  passed  out  of  both  God's  condemnation 
and  his  own,  because  he  had  through  Jesus  passed 
out  of  his  life  of  sinning.  God's  frown  and  his 
own  rested  upon  the  evil  past  which  he  had  for- 
saken. That  could  never,  of  course,  be  other- 
wise, while  he  and  God  remained  holy.  Neither, 
while  he  and  God  remained  holy,  could  it  ever  be 
otherwise  than  that  they  should  both  smile  upon 
his  present.  He  had  ceased  to  belong  to  his  past 
through  quitting  it  for  an  ever-living  present  of 
devotion  to  the  holy  will  of  God.  Through  yield- 
ing himself  up  to  all  the  requirements  of  this  will 
that  were  known  to  him,  he  had  been  taken  up 
into  it,  and  by  it  had  been  purified,  sanctified,  or 
set  apart  for  a  life  of  obedient  doing  and  suffer- 
ing, like  that  of  Jesus  himself.  (Heb.  10:10.) 
And  how  could  God  deny  his  approval  to  the 
character,  which,  as  the  God  of  salvation,  it  was 
his  special  work  to  impart?  And  did  not  God 
demand  of  him  that  he  also  should  give  it  his  ap- 
proval? 

I  have  taken  pains  to  elaborate  this  point  be- 
cause the  self-approval  of  Christ-like  men  is  still 
viewed  with  grave  suspicion  by  influential  lead- 


236  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

ers  of  Christian  thought.  And  I  cannot  pass 
away  from  it  without  a  further  word.  Where  is 
there  one  syllable  of  apostolic  warrant  for  the  cul- 
tivation of  a  guilty  self-accusing  spirit?  The 
man  who  answers  that  the  seventh  chapter  of 
Romans  certainly  furnishes  it,  is  a  man  who  can 
believe  it  possible  for  a  Christian  to  live  in  that 
experience  and  the  experience  of  the  eighth  chap- 
ter at  one  and  the  same  time;  and  not  only  pos- 
sible but  necessary.  To  him  holiness  of  charac- 
ter may  strike  desire  through  and  through,  but 
never  the  dispositions  or  the  will.  He  thinks  that 
the  joy  of  salvation  arises  from  the  conviction 
that  some  one  else  was  holy  in  our  place,  with  a 
holiness  which  on  the  one  condition  of  humble 
trust  avails  for  us  all,  because  it  is  imputed  to 
each  believer  in  all  its  fullness.  We  are  holy 
for  the  most  part  by  proxy.  It  is  ours  "to  ex- 
ult in  God,  through  Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord,"  not 
because  through  his  obedience  unto  death  we  have, 
by  the  divine  spirit,  been  brought  into  the  com- 
pletest  conscious  reconciliation  or  harmony  with 
God,  but  because  he  died  in  our  place!  and  was 
raised  again  for  our  justification.  God  pro- 
nounces us  righteous  while  he  knows  we  are  no 
such  thing,  but  still  the  bond-slaves  of  sin  and 
crying  out  in  anguish,  "Who  shall  deliver  me?" 
So  long  as  we  are  here  in  the  flesh  we  can  do  no 
better  than  mingle  our  bitter  cry  of  actual  daily 
defeat  with  our  paean  of  triumph  over  a  victory 
achieved  in  our  human  nature  by  one,  whom  it 


JESUS  AND  THE  SENSE  OF  SIN   237 

is  ours  to  follow  only  with  our  fullest  approval, 
our  earnest  and  abiding  faith  in  his  saving  merits 
and  our  agonized  desires ;  while  our  love  towards 
God  and  our  fellows  must  always  remain  cold  and 
our  wills  in  a  constant  state  of  partial  paralysis ! 

All  this  is  simply  the  old  priestly  and  heathen- 
ish denial  of  the  genuine  Christian  doctrine  of 
salvation  by  God's  loving  kindness  through  faith. 
To  justify  may  mean  to  pronounce  righteous,  but 
in  the  New  Testament  it  never  means  to  pro- 
nounce righteous  apart  from  making  the  individ- 
ual so  declared  righteous  in  himself  to  the  pre- 
cise length  and  breadth  and  depth  and  height 
that  he  is  pronounced  such.  God  cannot  be 
mocked  by  men,  and  he  does  not  mock  himself. 
He  never  calls  a  sinner  a  saint.  Nor  does  he 
count  any  saint  more  saintly  than  he  actually  is. 
God  cultivates  reality. 

It  is  by  bringing  men  into  his  will — into  as 
complete  a  conformity  to  his  will  as  they  feel  called 
to — that  God  relieves  and  gladdens  their  con- 
sciences. Apart  from  this  there  is  no  true  peace 
of  mind,  though  there  may  be  a  false  sense  of 
security.  The  New  Testament  is  full  of  this 
teaching.  It  is  not  always  clearly  set  forth,  but 
the  moment  Paul,  for  instance,  feels  that  he  has 
placed  this  truth  in  any  peril,  he  hastens  to  re- 
pair his  fault.  He  says — 

"Do  we,  then,  use  this  faith  to  abolish  Law? 
Heaven  forbid !  No,  we  establish  law." 


238  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

"What  are  we  to  say,  then?  Are  we  to  con- 
tinue in  sin,  in  order  that  God's  lovingkindness 
may  be  multiplied?  Heaven  forbid!  We  be- 
came dead  to  sin,  and  how  can  we  go  on  living  in 
it?"  (Rom.  3:31;  6:1,  2.)  Beside  this  I  may 
place  a  word  of  John:— — 

"You  know  that  Christ  appeared  to  take  away 
our  sins;  and  in  him  sin  has  no  place.  No  one 
who  maintains  union  with  him  lives  in  sin;  no  one 
who  lives  in  sin  has  ever  really  seen  him  or  learnt 
to  know  him.  My  children,  do  not  let  any  one 
mislead  you.  He  who  lives  righteously  is  right- 
eous— as  Christ  is  righteous.  He  who  lives  sin- 
fully belongs  to  the  Devil,  for  the  Devil  has  sinned 
from  the  first.  It  was  for  this  that  the  Son  of 
God  appeared,  that  he  might  undo  the  Devil's 
work.  No  one  who  has  received  the  New  Life 
from  God  lives  sinfully,  because  the  very  nature 
of  God  dwells  within  him;  and  he  cannot  live  in 
sin,  because  he  has  received  the  new  Life  from 
God."  (I  Jno.  3:5-9.)  How  positive  and  unmis- 
takable all  this  is.  And  John  goes  further  yet. 
He  declares  that  God  saves  into  holiness  of  dis- 
position as  well  as  into  that  holiness  of  the  will 
which  is  continually  represented  by  right  words 
and  deeds.  He  saves  from  hatred  into  love,  and 
he  who  has  not  been  rescued  from  hating  his  fel- 
low-men, and  introduced  to  the  experience  of  lov- 
ing them  (enemies  and  all)  instead,  has  not  re- 
ceived the  New  Life  from  God  at  all,  but  is  a  child 
of  the  Devil  still. 


JESUS  AND  THE  SENSE  OF  SIN   239 

He  who  lives  righteously  in  disposition  as  well 
as  in  desire,  in  volition,  and  in  word  and  deed,  is 
a  child  of  God;  and  to  live  thus  he  must  be  made 
a  child  of  God  through  the  impartation  by  God, 
and  the  reception  by  himself,  of  the  new  Life  from 
God,  and  so  have  the  very  nature  of  God  dwell- 
ing within  him.  There  is  no  salvation  through 
imputed  righteousness  here.  The  saved  sinner 
does  not  wear  a  Christly  robe  which  only  God  can 
see,  but  one  which  all  the  world  must  recognize 
as  Christly.  "He  who  lives  righteously  is  right- 
eous— as  Christ  is  righteous."  And  the  very  na- 
ture of  God  coming  to  dwell  within  him,  his  dis- 
positions also  are  made  Christly,  so  that  he  loves 
as  Christ  loves. 

To  enter  into  a  salvation  like  this  is  to  find 
peace  of  conscience  indeed.  Where  sins  no  longer 
exist  there  can  be  no  distressing  consciousness 
of  their  existence.  Where  the  will  of  God  is  fully 
entered  into  and  done  instead,  there  must  at  once 
be  realized  a  sense  of  self-approval,  which,  joined 
to  the  divine  approval,  cannot  but  give  birth  to 
the  joy  unspeakable  to  which  some  apostolic  pens 
testify.  It  was  this  peace,  this  joy,  that  the  writer 
of  the  "Hebrews"  referred  to  in  these  words — 

"Once  purified"  and  "Consciences  clear  from 
sins."  He  saw  plainly  that  because  Jesus  brought 
all  this  about  in  every  sinner,  who  took  him  as 
his  Savior  from  sinning,  "there  is  no  further  need 
of  an  offering  for  sin."  (Heb.  10 :2-18.)  Actual 
deliverance  from  conscious  sinning  is  the  problem 


240  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

which  God  has  worked  out  through  Jesus  for  us 
men  under  our  very  eyes.  Just  one  more  word 
from  Paul  to  show  how  clearly  he  perceived  this — 

"But  now  that  you  have  been  set  free  from  the 
control  of  Sin,  and  have  become  servants  to  God, 
the  fruit  that  you  reap  is  an  ever-increasing  holi- 
ness, and  the  end  Immortal  Life."  (Rom.  6:22.) 
How  could  the  man  who  wrote  this  have  failed  to 
write  also — "Indeed,  our  main  ground  for  satis- 
faction is  this — our  conscience  tells  us  that  our 
conduct  in  the  world,  and  still  more  in  our  rela- 
tions with  you,  was  marked  by  a  purity  of  motive 
and  a  sincerity  that  were  inspired  by  God,  and 
was  based,  not  on  worldly  policy,  but  on  the  help 
of  God."  (2  Cor.  1 :12.)  There  is  neither  mock 
modesty  nor  unworthy  silence  here.  He  was 
neither  afraid  nor  ashamed  to  say: 

"It  is  through  the  love  of  God  that  I  am  what 
I  am,  and  the  love  that  he  showed  me  has  not  been 
wasted."  (I  Cor.  15:10.)  Years  later  this  same 
man  "fixed  his  eyes  upon  the  Council  and  began — 

"  'Brothers,  for  my  part,  I  have  always  ordered 
my  life  before  God,  with  a  clear  conscience,  up  to 
this  very  day.'  "  (Acts  23:1.)  There  is  no  evi- 
dence whatever  that  Paul's  conscience  ever  con- 
victed him  of  one  act  of  unfaithfulness  towards 
his  Master  from  the  day  that  he  was  first  brought 
to  acknowledge  him  as  such,  to  the  moment  in 
which  he  sealed  his  testimony  with  his  blood. 
Once,  as  he  tells  us,  a  certain  physical  ailment 
made  his  work  so  hard  that — 


JESUS  AND  THE  SENSE  OF  SIN 

"I  three  times  entreated  the  Lord,  praying  that 
it  might  leave  me.  But  his  reply  has  been — 'My 
help  is  enough  for  you;  for  my  strength  attains 
its  perfection  in  the  midst  of  weakness.'  Most 
gladly,  then,  will  I  boast  all  the  more  of  my  weak- 
ness, so  that  the  strength  of  the  Christ  may  over- 
shadow me.  That  is  why  I  delight  in  weakness, 
ill-treatment,  hardships,  persecution  and  difficul- 
ties, when  borne  for  Christ.  For  when  I  am  weak, 
then  it  is  that  I  am  strong."  (II  Cor.  12:8-10.) 

This  is  the  sense  of  personal  righteousness  to 
which  Jesus  introduced  men  after  his  life  upon 
earth  had  ceased.  He  made  their  past  seem  un- 
worthy and  evil  to  them,  only  to  give  them  such 
characters  and  careers  as  would  fill  their  souls 
with  holy  satisfaction,  and  that  before  God.  He 
took  away  the  painful  sense  of  sin  so  thoroughly 
that  in  some  cases  at  least  it  seems  to  have  caused 
distress  only  in  connection  with  occasional  recol- 
lections of  that  past,  which,  through  his  loving- 
kindness  they  had  so  thoroughly  renounced.  What 
is  he  represented  as  having  done  in  this  direction 
in  the  days  of  his  flesh  ? 

He  is  represented  as  having  done  the  same  then 
as  later.  The  case  of  Zacchaeus  and  of  "the 
woman  who  was  an  outcast  in  the  town"  prove  this. 
There  is  nothing  in  either  of  these  stories  about 
the  sense  of  sin  which  Jesus  awakened.  That  this 
sense  was  awakened  who  can  doubt  who  has  read 
also  the  accounts  of  Peter's  denial  and  Judas's 
betrayal  of  Jesus?  Yet  it  receives  not  one  word 


242  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

of  mention.  Why?  Because  that  was  not  the 
thing  which  Jesus  emphasized  in  his  dealings  with 
sinful  men  and  women.  Jesus  was  a  positive  and 
not  a  negative  reformer — a  positive  and  not  a 
negative  Savior.  He  swallowed  up  all  the  nega- 
tives! of  the  Decalogue  in  his  three  positives. 
"What  is  the  first  of  all  the  commandments?" 
"The  first,"  answered  Jesus,  "is — 'Hear,  O 
Israel;  the  Lord  our  God  is  the  one  Lord;  and 
thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart  and  with  all  thy  .soul,  and  with  all  thy 
strength.'  The  second  is  this — 'Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor  as  thou  dost;  love  thyself.' '  (Mark 
12:28-31.)  Jesus  emptied  human  hearts  and 
lives  of  their  sins  by  filling  them  with  his  most 
passionate  striving  after  the  highest  righteous- 
ness. He  built  upon  DO,  not  upon  DO  NOT, 
and  set  men's  faces  towards  the  light  of  the  glow- 
ing future,  instead  of  towards  the  darkness  of 
the  days  they  had  misspent.  So  his  Zacchaeus's 
words  were  not  those  of  direct  confession  at  all, 
but  of  such  a  hearty  and  sturdy  profession  as 
led  Jesus  to  declare  before  all  the  cavillers — 

"Salvation  has  come  to  this  house  to-day,  for 
even  this  man  is  a  son  of  Abraham."  (Luke  19: 
9.)  With  the  woman  at  his  feet  in  the  house  of 
Simon  the  Pharisee  it  was  the  same.  "Simon,  I 
have  something  to  say  to  you."  "Pray  do  so, 
Teacher,"  Simon  answered;  and  Jesus  began: 
"There  were  two  people  who  were  in  debt  to  a 
money-lender;  one  owed  fifty  pounds,  and  the 


JESUS  AND  THE  SENSE  OF  SIN 

other  five.  As  they  were  unable  to  pay,  he  for- 
gave them  both.  Which  of  them,  do  you  think, 
will  love  him  the  more?"  "I  suppose,"  answered 
Simon,  "it  will  be  the  man  to  whom  he  forgave 
the  greater  debt."  "You  are  right,"  said  Jesus, 
and  then,  turning  to  the  woman,  he  said  to  Si- 
mon— "Do  you  see  this  woman?  I  came  into  your 
house — you  gave  me  no  water  for  my  feet,  but  she 
has  made  my  feet  wet  with  tears  and  dried  them 
with  her  hair.  You  did  not  give  me  one  kiss,  but 
she,  from  the  moment  I  came  in,  has  not  ceased 
to  kiss  my  feet.  You  did  not  anoint  my  head  even 
with  oil,  but  she  has  anointed  my  head  with  per- 
fume. And  for  this,  I  tell  you,  her  sins,  many  as 
they  are,  have  been  pardoned,  because  she  has 
loved  greatly;  but  one  who  has  little  pardoned 
him,  loves  but  little." 

This  was  Jesus's  way.  He  transmuted  the 
deepest  sense  of  sin  into  the  most  passionate 
spirit  of  holy  service.  He  could  not  have  done 
otherwise  and  been  the  Savior  he  was.  The  nurs^ 
ing  of  regrets  is  worse  than  idle  and  remorse  is 
suicidal.  It  was  along  this  path  that  Judas 
moved  bearing  the  cord  which  proved  as  treacher- 
ous towards  him  as  he  had  towards  his  Master; 
and  Jesus  flew  from  his  grave  to  save  Peter  from 
it.  It  is  only  as  our  regrets  lose  themselves  in 
our  love  for  God  in  Christ  that  we  become  posi- 
tively holy  and  greatly  useful.  Therefore  this 
is  the  one  way  of  salvation  to  which  Jesus  intro- 
duces us.  A  most  essential  portion  of  Paul's 


A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

motto  was — "Forgetting  what  lies  behind." 
Only  as  he  continually  succeeded  in  doing 
this  did  he  find  himself  "straining  every  nerve  for 
that  which  lies  in  front."  (Phil.  3:13.)  Regret 
gnaws  away  the  energies  and  paralyzes  aspira- 
tion, while  grateful  love  catches  visions  of  the  high- 
est possibilities,  and  harnesses  every  power  for 
victorious  achievement. 

May  we  not  listen  to  Jesus  while  he  tells  us  how 
the  Father  deals  with  his  sinful  children?  He  is 
relating  the  story  of  the  Two  Sons  and  has  reached 
the  place  where  the  lost  young  man,  returning 
from  his  deep  want  and  shame,  and  dragging  him- 
self painfully  along  in  his  raggedness,  is  met  by 
his  Father,  who  "saw  him  while  he  was  still  a  long 
way  off,  was  deeply  moved,  and  ran  and  threw  his 
arms  round  his  neck  and  kissed  him."  The 
wretched  prodigal  wails  out — 

"I  sinned  against  Heaven  and  against  you;  I 
am  no  longer  fit  to  be  called  your  son;  make  me 
one  of  your  hired  servants."  But  the  father  is 
so  deaf  to  all  this  that  he  does  not  appear  to  have 
heard  one  word.  What  he  has  heard  is  his  son's 
spirit  of  contrition,  and  his  utter  readiness  and 
longing  desire  to  do  his  whole  will,  even  in  the 
lowest  place.  So  instead  of  taking  him  at  his 
word,  "the  father  turned  to  his  servants  and 
said  'Be  quick  and  fetch  a  robe — the  very  best — 
and  put  it  on  him ;  give  him  a  ring  for  his  finger 
and  sandals  for  his  feet ;  and  bring  the  fatted  calf 
and  kill  it,  and  let  us  eat  and  make  merry;  for 


JESUS  AND  THE  SENSE  OF  SIN 

here  is  my  son  who  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again, 
was  lost,  and  is  found.'  " 

We  must  make  him  forget,  we  must  make  him 
forget ;  his  bad  past  must  be  crowded  out  of  his 
active  memory  even,  by  means  of  the  high  place 
and  the  holy  joys  we  shall  make  his!  This  has 
always  been  the  father's  spirit  towards  his  chil- 
dren who  return  to  him  from  their  wanderings. 
The  Priest's  provision  is  the  humbling,  painful  or 
costly  penance,  the  Pharisee's  the  place  of  the 
outcast  who  must  never  be  permitted  to  forget, 
while  that  of  the  Father  is  all  that  belongs  to  son- 
ship  in  that  holy  mansion,  which  is  our  own 
Father's  house.  Jesus  strengthened  to  the  utmost 
the  spirit  of  self-reverence,  and  the  conscience 
which  does  not  accuse. 


XV 

JESUS   THE   BEARER  AWAY  OF  SIN 

The  bearer  away  must  first  become  the  bearer. 
No  load  can  be  carried  to  a  distance  until  it  has 
first  been  laid  upon  the  shoulders  which  are  to 
be  burdened  by  it  for  the  time.  This  fact  is  most 
distinctly  set  forth  in  one  of  the  symbols  of  Mo- 
saism. 

There  was  each  year  a  supreme  day  of  atone- 
ment for  the  Israelitish  people.  Of  the  animals 
figuring  in  connection  with  the  bloody  and  un- 
bloody rites  of  this  day  were  two  goats.  Between 
these  there  was  no  difference  either  in  perfection 
or  worth,  when  they  were  taken  by  the  Priest 
and  set  before  Jehovah  at  the  door  of  the  tent 
of  meeting  to  be  chosen  by  lot,  one  for  Jehovah, 
the  other  for  Azazel.  As  soon  as  the  lot  was  cast, 
the  one  that  fell  to  Jehovah  was  slaughtered,  and, 
as  it  poured  out  its  life,  its  blood  was  caught  in 
a  basin  and  in  this  basin  borne  by  the  high  priest 
through  the  curtain  into  the  Holiest  Place,  where 
it  was  sprinkled  by  him  seven  times  upon  and  be- 
fore the  Mercy  Seat.  Borne  out  again  it  was  at 
length  mixed  with  the  blood  of  the  bullock,  which 
seems  to  have  been  slain  before  it,  and  used  in 
further  acts  of  purification  upon  the  places  and 
246 


JESUS  THE  BEARER  OF  SIN 

furniture  provided  for  the  priestly  and  popular 
worship.  This  done  the  high  priest  proceeded 
according  to  these  specifications — 

"He  shall  lay  both  his  hands  upon  the  head 
of  the  live  goat,  and  confess  over  him  all  the  ini- 
quities of  the  children  of  Israel,  and  all  their  trans- 
gressions, even  all  their  sins;  and  he  shall  put 
them  upon  the  head  of  the  goat,  and  shall  send 
him  away  by  the  hand  of  a  man  that  is  in  readi- 
ness into  the  wilderness :  and  the  goat  shall  bear 
upon  him  all  their  iniquities  unto  a  solitary  land : 
and  he  shall  let  go  the  goat  in  the  wilderness." 

Thus  the  goat  for  Azazel — the  scape-goat — 
became  first  the  bearer  of  all  Israel's  sins,  and  aft- 
erwards, under  superior  guidance  and  control,  the 
bearer  away  of  these  sins. 

Let  us  be  very  specific  here.  These  goats  were 
the  means  of  getting  Jesus  placed  before  us  first 
as  the  bearer  of  our  sins,  and  then  as  the  bearer 
away  of  our  sins.  The  writers  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment were  Israelites  and  thought  and  wrote  as 
such.  They  could  never  get  away  from  the  re- 
ligious imagery  of  their  race.  Now  we  shall  see 
as  we  proceed  that,  in  their  estimation,  Jesus 
took  the  place  of  both  goats,  as  well  as  of  all  the 
other  victims  and  sin-bearers  of  the  Mosaic  ritual. 
He  took  the  place  of  the  first  goat  as  well  as  of 
the  second,  the  place  of  the  second,  as  well  as  of 
the  first. 

Fixing  our  attention  now  upon  the  goat  for 
Azazel — the  scape-goat — let  us  note  how  he  be- 


248  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

comes  the  bearer  of  sins.  He  becomes  such 
through  their  confession.  He  is  neither  killed  nor 
wounded.  No  violence  whatever  is  visited  upon 
him.  He  is  not  looked  upon  with  dislike  but  with 
favor.  He  is  not  regarded  with  hatred  but  with 
affection.  The  people  gather  about  him  and  with 
one  voice,  through  the  lips  of  the  High  Priest, 
they  say,  and  rejoice  as  they  say  it — This  is  our 
goat,  our  goat  for  Azazel,  our  scape-goat,  our 
goat  that  is  here  for  the  express  purpose  of  bear- 
ing and  then  bearing  away  our  sins.  For  this 
goat  bless  we  Jehovah !  Here  by  confessing  our 
sins  we  renounce  them  and  part  with  them  forever. 
Henceforth  may  they  never  burden  us  more !  And 
they  cannot  afflict  him,  for  our  goat  cannot  sink 
under  human  sins,  though  he  can  bear  them  away, 
representing  as  he  does,  the  salvation  of  our  holy 
God,  as  he  causes  the  words  of  our  mouths  and  the 
meditations  of  our  hearts  to  flow  forth  in  purity 
and  truth  before  him,  our  minds  to  meditate  night 
and  day  upon  his  law  and  our  whole  lives  to  image 
forth  his  will. 

The  typical  priest  of  Mosaism,  of  course,  never 
rose  to  this  height.  He  was  earthly,  sensual,  dev- 
ilish. He  could  not  see  the  truth  in  his  own  sys- 
tem. He  could  not  believe  in  the  possible  thing — 
the  actual  blessed  deliverance  of  men  from  their 
sins  themselves.  He  could  only  believe  in  the  im- 
possible thing — namely,  their  deliverance  from  all 
the  penalties  of  their  sins.  Where  faith  ceases 
credulity  always  begins.  The  man  who  cannot 


JESUS  THE  BEARER  OF  SIN        249 

believe  in  the  thing  which  is  rational  will  always 
find  a  place  in  his  creed  for  the  thing  which  is 
irrational.  The  priest  named  the  sins  of  Israel 
one  after  another,  placing  them  with  his  own 
hands  upon  the  head  of  the  goat,  and  then 
through  some  mental  legerdemain,  gazed  after  it, 
as  it  was  being  led  out  of  his  sight  by  the  "man  in 
readiness,"  under  the  hazy  impression  that  it 
was  bearing  away  into  the  wilderness,  not  those 
sins  at  all,  but  their  various  penalties  of  broken 
health,  intellectual  weakness,  and  moral  and  spir- 
itual disability.  Or,  failing  even  here,  he  saw  as 
sin's  penalty  only  the  vengeful  wrath  of  an  infinite 
Shylock,  who,  however,  might  be  won  to  mercy 
through  the  plentiful  shedding  of  blood  not  hu- 
man. 

But  the  prophet  in  Israel,  to  whatever  tribe 
he  might  belong,  saw  the  truth,  and  rejoiced  in 
the  liberty  from  sinning  which  it  continually  as- 
sured him.  To  this  prophet  we  owe  every  uplift- 
ing thing  which  the  Old  Testament  contains.  To 
him  the  service  of  God  always  meant  an  escape 
from  his  sins  themselves  into  the  holy  will  of  God 
— an  escape  and  deliverance  divinely  prepared 
and  divinely  effected.  The  rites  of  his  religion 
in  general,  and  the  rites  of  the  day  of  atonement 
in  particular,  all  spoke  to  him  of  this  great  sal- 
vation. Behind  them  all  he  saw  God  himself  so 
distinctly,  as  the  God  and  Rock  of  his  salvation, 
that  again  and  again  he  felt  himself  in  no  need 
of  any  further  continuance,  or  use,  of  the  ap- 


250  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

pointed  rites.  He  met  God  in  the  synagogue  as 
well  as  in  the  temple,  and  under  the  stars  as  well 
as  in  the  synagogue,  and  cried — 

"Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  thee? 
And  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire  beside 

thee. 

My  flesh,  even  my  heart  faileth; 
But  God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart,  and  my  portion 
forever."      (Psalm  73:25-26.) 

Let  us  now  look  back.  The  goat  for  Azazel 
must  forever  stand  associated  with  the  goat  for 
Jehovah.  There  is  no  confession  of  sin,  and  con- 
sequently, no  "remission"  or  escape  from  sin  it- 
self, contemplated  in  the  Mosaic  ritual  apart  from 
the  shedding  of  blood.  This  is  because  that  ritual 
contemplated  sin  to  the  utmost,  as  well  as  salva- 
tion to  the  utmost.  The  two  things  absolutely 
must  stand  together.  Salvation  to  the  uttermost 
implies  sin  to  the  uttermost,  and  sin  to  the  utter- 
most demands  salvation  to  the  uttermost.  And 
sin  is  to  the  uttermost  when  it  slays  the  perfect 
being,  because  it  declares  that,  being  perfect,  he 
should  be  slain.  Here  sin  represents  the  perver- 
sion of  all  right  thinking,  shows  us  conscience,  in 
the  time  if  its  supreme  test,  saying  in  the  most 
absolute  way  I  ought,  when  the  only  proper  word 
for  it  is  an  absolute  I  ought  not ;  the  will  deciding 
to  take  life  at  the  point  where  most  of  all  it  should 
decide  to  preserve  it;  and  the  whole  man  throw- 
ing himself]  into  an  act  of  murder  in  the  very  case 


JESUS  THE  BEARER  OF  SIN        251 

in  which  he  should  be  giving  all  his  powers  to  the 
work  of  approving,  exalting  and  glorifying  the 
being  whom  he  makes  his  victim.  And  the  pic- 
ture ^rawn  by  Mosaism  is  blacker  yet.  Intellect, 
conscience,  will,  the  whole  man,  must  do  all  this 
in  the  name  of  God,  and  through  God's  chief 
priest.  It  was  the  high  priest  himself  who  slew 
the  perfect  being,  Jehovah's  chosen  one,  the  goat 
for  Jehovah;  and  he  slew  it  as  the  people's  repre- 
sentative. Their  vote  went  that  way.  Through 
him  they  all  slew  it.  The  prophet  had  the  true 
vision  when  at  last  he  saw  and  said  that  each 
bloody  offering  testified  to  a  murder,  besides  other 
outrages.  (Isa.  66:3.) 

First,  then,  under  Mosaism  we  see  an  innocent 
and  perfect  representative  of  its  kind  slaughtered 
on  this  one  definite  ground,  among  others,  that  it 
was  perfect.  It  was  on  account  of  its  perfection 
that  it  was  singled  out  and  made  a  victim.  Then, 
as  if  this  victim  had  come  to  life  again,  we  see 
the  very  men  who  slew  it  gathered  about  a  being 
just  like  it,  confessing  their  sins  upon  its  head 
through  the  lips  of  the  same  high  priest  through 
whose  hands  they  had  done  their  deed  of  slaugh- 
ter, and  then,  with  him,  gazing  upon  it  as  it  bears 
their  sins  away  from  them  into  the  wilderness, 
which  they  propose  never  to  visit  to  resume  them. 
And  all  this  we  say  represents  Jesus  as  the  bearer 
and  bearer-away  of  sin. 

In  this  study  of  Jesus,  then,  we  must  first  look 
upon  him  as  the  bearer  of  sin.  He  is  the  bearer 


252  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

of  sin  first  as  the  perfect  man  who,  because  of  his 
perfect  goodness,  was  murdered,  and  then  as  the 
perfect  man  in  whose  presence  sinful  men  stand 
convicted  of  their  sins,  confessing1  and  renouncing 
them.  The  lot  fell  to  him  first  for  Jehovah  and 
then  for  Azazel.  The  goats  were  two  and  he  is 
one  and  the  same  Jesus.  They  were  two  because 
the  first  could  not  be  made  to  live  again  after  be- 
ing slaughtered.  Jesus  is  one  because  it  is  his 
to  say — 

"I  died,  and  I  am  alive  forever  and  ever." 
(Rev.  1:18.)  Jesus  on  the  cross  as  the  bearer  of 
sin  was  a  familiar  thought  to  the  primitive  Jewish 
Christian  mind.  Peter  gave  it  expression  when 
he  wrote — "He  himself  carried  our  sins  in  his 
own  body  to  the  cross."  (I  Pet.  2:24.)  This 
bearing  of  human  sins  by  Jesus  was  not  mysti- 
cal but  actual.  A  considerable  list  of  these  sins 
can  easily  be  made  out.  All  sins  came  upon  him 
there  in  their  root  principle  of  selfishness.  Jesus 
had  told  his  persecutors  early  that  the  self-seek- 
ing spirit  could  not  but  prevent  their  acceptance 
of  him,  and  that  this  self-seeking  was  a  genuine 
renunciation  of  God  himself.  (Jno.  5:44.)  This 
self-seeking  led  these  persecutors  to  the  place 
where  "Pilate  knew  that  it  was  out  of  jealousy 
(or  envy)  that  they  had  given  Jesus  up  to  him." 
(Matt.  27:18.)  In  the  Upper  Room  Jesus 
said — 

"They  have  both  seen  and  hated  both  me  and 
my  Father.  And  so  is  fulfilled  what  is  said  in 


JESUS  THE  BEARER  OF  SIN        253 

their  law — 'They  hated  me  without  a  cause.'  " 
(Jno.  15-^4,  25.)  At  an  earlier  date  he  sternly 
rebuked  these  men  in  such  words  as  these — 

"You  are  children  of  your  father  the  Devil, 
and  you  are  determined  to  do  what  your  father 
loves  to  do.  He  was  a  murderer  from  the  first 
.  .  .  He  is  a  liar  and  the  father  of  lying." 
(Jno.  8:44.)  He  who  reads  the  story  of  the  trial 
of  Jesus  in  the  light  of  such  statements  as  these 
will  see  that  Jesus  bore  to  his  cross  besides  sel- 
fishness— that  fruitful  mother  of  all  human  sins — 
envy,  jealousy,  hatred,  malice,  blasphemy,  coward- 
ice, lying,  perjury,  subornation  of  perjury,  and 
wanton  cruelty  and  murder.  He  went  to  his 
cross,  bore  it,  and  had  it  bear  him,  as  the  per- 
fectly innocent  victim  of  all  these  forms  of  human 
sin.  He  bore  them  in  his  body,  which  they  slew, 
sin  proving  mightier  than  his  physical  frame  and 
that  which  constituted  it  a  living  organism.  Sin 
as  death  crushed  out  his  physical  life. 

Thus  he  bore  our  sins.  But  he  did  not  in  this 
act  bear  them  away.  On  the  cross  Jesus  endured 
our  sins.  Neither  Judas  who  betrayed  him,  nor 
Peter  who  denied  him  with  oaths  and  imprecations, 
nor  Pilate  who  in  his  cowardice  gave  him  up  to 
death,  when  he  should  have  stood  by  his  own  ver- 
dict of  acquittal,  nor  the  crowd  which  voted  for 
his  crucifixion,  nor  the  hierarchy  which  had  at 
last  consummated  its  murderous  purpose,  was 
freed  from  one  of  his  sins  or  from  an  atom  of  his 
guilt,  through  the  shedding  of  his  blood.  Only 


254  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

the  perverted  priestly  mind  can  believe  such 
topsy-turvy  teaching.  But  one  moment  of  serious 
reflection  was  needed  by  any  one  of  the  whole  un- 
worthy lot  to  convince  him  that  his  sin  and  guilt 
alike  were  carried  to  their  climax  in  the  moment 
when  their  victim,  having  cried  out,  "It  is  fin- 
ished," breathed  out  his  life  to  God  in  the  words 
— "Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commit  my  Spirit." 
(Luke  23:46.)  It  was  because  the  conscience  of 
Judas  was  true  at  last,  that,  in  view  of  this  mo- 
ment and  all  it  meant  for  him,  he  rushed  to  the 
chief  priest  in  a  frenzied  act  of  confession  and 
restitution,  and  then  in  the  blackness  of  despair 
went  "to  his  proper  place."  How  much  would  it 
have  comforted  him  to  know  that  his  victim  loved 
him  still  and  was  even  then  praying  for  his  mur- 
derers? Is  murder  rendered  no  murder  at  all  be- 
cause a  Jesus,  or  a  Stephen  after  him,  is  god-like 
enough  to  die  wishing  for  his  slayers  the  mercy, 
instead  of  the  vengeance,  of  Heaven  ?  Nay.  The 
vision  of  such  innocent  and  surpassing  love  inten- 
sifies their  sense  of  guilt.  How  Peter  must  have 
suffered  under  his  crushing  consciousness  of  ill- 
desert,  in  view  of  the  part  he  played  during  the 
fatal  trial,  until  Jesus  met  him  in  mercy  after  his 
resurrection!  It  was  this  sense  of  his  own  guilt 
which  so  distinctly  fitted  him  to  charge  home  to 
them  the  more  awful  guilt  of  others  in  such  words 
as  these — 

"Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  man  whose  mission  from 
God  to  you  was  proved  by  miracles,  wonders  and 


JESUS  THE  BEARER  OF  SIN        255 

signs,  which  God  showed  among  you  through  him, 
as  you  know  full  well  .  .  .  you,  by  the  hands 
of  lawless  men,  nailed  to  a  cross  and  put  to  death. 
But  God  released  him  from  the  pangs  of  death 
and  raised  him  to  life,  it  being  impossible  for 
death  to  retain  its  hold  upon  him.  ...  So 
let  the  whole  nation  of  Israel  know  beyond  all 
doubt,  that  God  has  made  him  both  Lord  and 
Christ — this  very  Jesus  whom  you  crucified." 

Were  the  people  comforted  when  they  heard 
this?  Did  they  reason  to  the  swift  conclusion 
that  the  resurrection  at  least  had  made  all  things 
right  for  them,  because  it  proved  that  they  had 
simply  been  playing  into  the  hands  of  God  and 
helping  him  towards  his  triumph  over  human 
wickedness  in  general?  Far  as  their  intellectual 
perversion  had  gone,  it  had  not  gone  as  far  as 
that.  God's  triumph  thoroughly  alarmed  them, 
as  well  it  might.  "They  were  conscience  smitten 
and  said  to  Peter  and  to  the  rest  of  the  apos- 
tles— 

"Brothers,  what  can  we  do?" 

"Repent,"   answered  Peter.      (Act  2:22.) 

Now  to  get  this  whole  matter  before  us  from 
the  view-point  of  the  Mosaic  Day  of  Atonement,  it 
is  necessary  for  me  to  proceed  to  another  word 
of  Peter.  Addressing  numbers  of  these  same  per- 
sons again  shortly  after  the  day  of  Pentecost  it- 
self, Peter  urged  home  these  facts — 

"You,  I  say,  disowned  the  Holy  and  Righteous 


256  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

One,  and  asked  for  the  release  of  a  murderer! 
The  very  Guide  to  Life  you  put  to  death!  But 
God  raised  him  from  the  dead.  .  .  .  There- 
fore repent  and  turn,  that  your  sins  may  be 
wiped  away.  .  .  .  'And  it  shall  be  that 
should  any  one  among  the  people  not  listen 
to  that  Prophet  he  shall  be  utterly  de- 
stroyed.' .  .  .  For  you,  first,  God  raised 
up  his  servant,  and  sent  him  to  bless  you,  by 
turning  each  one  of  you  from  his  wicked  ways." 
(Acts  3:14,  15,  19,  26.)  The  gist  of  all  this 
is  that  the  great  purpose  of  God  in  sending  his 
Son  into  the  world  was  to  lead  Israel  into  blessed- 
ness by  leading  them  out  of  their  sins,  but  they 
had  utterly  rejected  this  purpose  of  God  and  had 
through  their  High  Priest  "put  to  death"  "the 
very  Guide  to  Life."  Just  as  through  that  same 
high  priest  they  had  from  year  to  year  on  their 
Day  of  Atonement  slain  Jehovah's  goat  they  had 
now  through  him  murdered  Jehovah's  "Servant," 
"his  Holy  and  Righteous  One."  But  God  had 
not  abandoned  his  purpose  to  save  them.  On 
the  contrary  he  had  raised  Jesus  up  again  by 
bringing  him  back  from  the  dead,  and  now  he 
was  offered  to  them  afresh  as  their  bearer  and 
bearer-away  of  sins.  In  direct  view  of  his  liv- 
ing perfections,  his  holiness  and  righteousness,  it 
was  theirs  to  look  upon  their  own  sins  and 
recognize  their  utter  badness,  theirs  to  repent  of 
them  all,  confessing  and  renouncing  them, 
and  seeing  them  borne  away  through  the  di- 


JESUS  THE  BEARER  OF  SIN        257 

vine  forgiveness  as,  in  symbol,  they  had  been 
borne  away  from  year  to  year  by  the  goat  for 
Azazel. 

Some  distinctions  must  be  made  here.  From 
the  standpoint  of  man's  part  in  it  the  death  of 
Jesus  was  the  worst  and  most  indefensible  of  all 
murders.  And  there  is  really  no  other  stand- 
point from  which  to  view  it.  Jesus  himself  had 
no  part  in  it  except  to  endure  it,  under  tremen- 
dous protest,  as  I  have  elsewhere  pointed  out. 
His  Father  strengthened  him  for  and  during  the 
ordeal,  by  keeping  his  heart  unalterably  set  upon 
that  testimony  for  the  truth  which  it  was  his  to 
utter  and  to  live.  It  was  a  deed  of  unutterable 
wickedness,  which  God  in  his  respect  for  the 
human  freedom  established  by  himself,  could  not 
avert.  Every  effort  of  Jesus  himself  to  avert  it 
was  also  an  effort  of  his  Father  put  forth  through 
him.  No  other  view  whatever  can  be  entertained 
without  making  our  Father  and  his  a  partner  be- 
forehand in  the  most  shameful  crime  which  has 
ever  blackened  the  pages  of  human  history. 
There  is  no  contradiction  to  all  this  in  the  words 
of  Jesus — "I  lay  down  my  life — to  receive  it 
again.  No  one  took  it  from  me,  but  I  lay  it  down 
of  myself."  His  was  not)  the  death  of  the  suicide, 
but  of  the  martyr.  These  words  simply  repre- 
sent that  splendid  sense  of  victory  in  defeat  which 
arose  in  his  mind  in  connection  with  his  complete 
entrance  into  the  will  of  his  Father,  and  that 
vision  of  the  final  outcome  of  all  with  which  his 


258  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Father  cheered  his  heart.      (Jno.  10:17,  18;  Heb. 


The  death  of  Jesus,  therefore,  did  not  procure 
forgiveness  for  men.  If  anything  could  have 
made  their  forgiveness  impossible,  any  one  but 
Jesus  himself  would  have  said  it  was  that.  As 
it  was,  his  first  prayer  on  the  cross,  uttered,  prob- 
ably, while  one  of  the  nails  was  plowing  its 
way  through  his  flesh  and  bones  into  the  wood, 
was  —  "Father,  forgive  them  ;  they  do  not  know 
what  they  are  doing."  Doubt  has  been  thrown 
upon  the  authenticity  of  this  prayer,  but  it  is 
certainly  in  full  harmony  with  all  the  facts  of 
the  occasion,  as  well  as  with  the  spirit  of  Jesus 
himself. 

What,  then,  in  the  mercy  of  God  has  the  death 
of  Jesus,  joined  with  the  fact  of  his  resurrection, 
accomplished  for  our  race?  This.  It  has  done 
more  than  all  the  wickedness  of  men  besides  to 
drive  home  to  their  consciences  the  fact  that  they 
are  sinners  in  need  of  the  salvation  of  God.  It 
did  this  at  Pentecost,  has  done  it  ever  since,  is 
doing  it  now,  and  will  continue  to  do  it,  until  the 
last  sin  of  all  has  stood  indefensible  in  its  pres- 
ence. This  also  it  has  done,  or  men  might  have 
committed  suicide  one  after  another  like  Judas  — 
it  has  revealed  that  love  of  God  which  endures  all 
things  that  it  may  forgive  all  things,  and  bears 
with  all  sorts  of  sin,  that  it  may  save  us  from 
them  all.  It  not  only  brings  to  conviction  of 
sin;  it  brings  also  to  repentance,  that  is  to  say, 


JESUS  THE  BEARER  OF  SIN        259 

to  the  confession  and  abandonment  of  sin,  and  to 
such  a  trust  in  the  mercy  and  love  of  God  as  in- 
spires to  the  largest  possible  acquisition  of  his 
whole  mind  and  character.  In  short,  the  sending 
of  Jesus  into  the  world  by  his  father  and  ours  to 
endure  the  death  of  the  cross,  so  commends  his 
love  to  us  that  our  love  of  sin  breaks  down  before 
the  vision,  and  we  accept  and  embrace  his  right- 
eousness in  its  stead,  to  find  it  transforming  us 
and  building  itself  into  our  whole  character  and 
life.  We  know  that  those  who  slew  him  ought  to 
have  accepted  his  guidance  out  of  their  sins  into 
the  righteousness  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  at  once, 
and  without  reddening  their  hands  with  his  blood. 
We  know  ourselves  to  be  of  the  same  race  and 
character  as  they.  We  call  their  crime  our  own, 
and,  fleeing  from  our  guilt  of  the  cross,  we 
"draw  near  boldly  to  the  Throne  of  Love"  to 
find  there,  "the  pity  and  love"  we  need.  (Heb. 
4:16.) 

Finally,  it  is  not  the  Jesus  who  died  that  is 
the  Savior  of  our  race.  He  offered  himself  to 
his  people  to  be  their  Savior  and  through  them, 
the  Savior  of  all  men  besides.  But  they  re- 
jected and  crucified  him.  It  is  not  Jesus  in  our 
mortal  flesh  who  is  our  Savior.  Paul  took  in  this 
fact  and  wrote — "If  we  have  known  Christ  as  a 
man  in  the  flesh,  yet  now  we  do  so  no  longer." 
(2  Cor.  5:16.)  The  Jesus  who  is  our  Savior  is 
he  who  was  raised  from  the  dead  and  placed  by 
his  God  and  Father  "above  all  Angels  and  Arch- 


260  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

angels  of  every  rank  and  above  every  name  that 
can  be  named."  (Eph.  1:20,  21.)  Yet  both 
are  one.  "He  who  went  down  is  the  same  as  he 
who  went  up — up  beyond  the  highest  heaven,  that 
he  might  fill  all  things  with  his  presence.  And 
he  it  is  who  gave  to  the  Church  Apostles, 
prophets,  missionaries,  pastors  and  teachers." 
(Eph.  4:10,  11.) 

"To  him  who  loves  us  and  freed  us  from  our 
sins  by  his  own  blood  in  his  utmost  love — and  he 
made  us  'a  Kingdom  of  Priests  in  the  service  of 
God,'  his  Father ! — to  him  be  ascribed  glory  and 
dominion  forever.  Amen."  (Rev.  1 :5,  6.) 


XVI 

JESUS  THE  MEDIATOR  AND 
INTERCESSOR 

The  mediator  is  the  middleman  in  any  trans- 
action where  the  principals  concerned  do  not  find 
it  convenient  or  possible  to  meet  each  other  in 
person.  There  are  various  middlemen,  bearing  a 
variety  of  names  and  discharging  a  variety  of 
functions  in  trade  and  commerce.  Barristers  and 
attorneys  are  the  middlemen  of  the  courts  of  law, 
where  the  principals  in  each  case  stand  in  the 
background  under  the  name  of  clients.  The  mid- 
dlemen of  sovereigns  and  sovereign  states  go  un- 
der such  titles  as  plenipotentiaries  and  ambassa- 
dors. These  are  servants  who  have  been  given 
full  authority  to  act  on  behalf  of  their  sovereign 
masters. 

A  second  sort  of  mediator  or  middleman  is  the 
arbiter  or  umpire,  who  is  chosen  jointly  by  both 
the  parties  in  a  given  dispute,  contest  or  com- 
petition, to  say  what  is  fair  and  equal  between 
them  in  the  case.  He  may  have  much  work  in 
bringing  his  principals  to  see  and  conform  to 
the  requirements  of  righteousness,  particularly 
where  their  difference  has  become  a  quarrel,  and 
961 


262  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

a  dogged  obstinacy  has  been  developed  on  one 
side  or  both. 

The  office  of  the  intercessor  is  quite  closely 
akin  to  that  of  the  ambassador  and  arbiter,  and 
its  functions  are  very  often  involved  in  the  work 
of  these.  The  intercessor  pleads  with  one  per- 
son or  power  on  behalf  of  another.  If  he  is  in 
the  place  of  an  arbiter  he  may  be  compelled  to 
plead  with  each  of  his  clients  to  give  due  con- 
sideration to  the  other's  claims,  and  to  assume 
the  place  and  attitude  required  both  by  the  facts 
of  the  case  and  the  entirely  friendly  agreement 
and  relationship  which  they  have  in  contempla- 
tion. 

Either  ambassador  or  arbiter  may  easily  find 
himself  in  personal  peril  solely  on  account  of  his 
faithful  discharge  of  the  duties  of  his  position. 
The  more  he  pleads  for  the  rights  of  the  case 
which  he  is  representing,  the  more  offensive  will 
he  make  himself  to  the  party  who  is  determined 
to  have  his  own  way,  right  or  wrong.  If  he  per- 
sists in  doing  his  whole  duty,  he  may  even  lose 
his  life,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  his  person  is  very 
properly  considered  inviolable. 

According  to  New  Testament  thought  Jesus 
holds  both  offices.  He  is  a  mediator,  and  he  is  an 
intercessor.  He  is  God's  Servant.  Then  he  is 
the  Servant  who  was  sent  to  men  with  God's  mes- 
sage. He  is  also  represented  as  clothed  with 
sovereign  powers,  and  as  being  in  some  sense 
the  vicegerent,  as  well  as  the  ambassador,  of 


JESUS  THE  MEDIATOR 

Heaven.  This  is  quite  natural,  for  the  ambassa- 
dor is  always  a  vicegerent  to  the  full  extent  of 
the  work  which  it  is  his  to  do  on  behalf  of  his 
country  or  his  sovereign.  These  writers  tell  us, 
too,  that  he  pleads,  as  well  as  demands,  seeking 
to  move  by  persuasion  and  by  personal  influence, 
as  well  as  by  that  awe  which  infinite  authority  is 
calculated  to  inspire. 

So  he  speaks  for  God  to  men.  He  is  also  rep- 
resented as  speaking  for  men  to  God.  He  is, 
therefore,  doubly  an  intercessor,  and  seems  at 
times  rather  an  arbiter  than  an  ambassador  pure 
and  simple.  He  is  as  much  devoted  to  the  wel- 
fare of  men  as  to  the  unfolding  purpose  of  God. 

In  his  illustrations  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
Jesus  represents  that  Kingdom  as  "a  treasure 
hidden  in  a  field,  which  a  man  found  and  hid 
again,  and  then,  in  his  delight,  went  and  sold 
all  that  he  had  and  bought  that  field;  and  again 
as  a  merchant  in  search  of  choice  pearls,  who, 
finding  one  of  great  value,  went  and  sold  every- 
thing that  he  had,  and  bought  it."  (Matt.  13: 
44-46.)  From  the  viewpoint  of  these  he  set 
forth  "the  Kingdom"  as  capable  of  becoming  the 
personal  possession  of  "a  merchant"  or  "a  man." 
If  this  "merchant"  and  "man"  do  not  stand 
for  Jesus  himself,  which  is  doubtful,  then 
they  represent  that  whole  class  of  seekers 
after  the  highest  and  best,  who,  through  all  the 
centuries  from  the  first,  have  seen  in  what  Jesus 
bore  with  him  from  Heaven  to  earth,  the  richest 


264  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

treasures  of  their  kind  ever  brought  within 
human  reach.  This  interpretation  harmonizes 
well  with  such  words  of  Paul  as — "God's  hidden 
Truth,  even  Christ  himself,  in  whom  all  treasures 
of  wisdom  and  knowledge  lie  hidden. 
For  in  Christ  the  Godhead  in  all  its  fullness  dwells 
incarnate,  and  by  your  union  with  him,  you  also 
are  filled  with  it."  (Col.  2:2,  9.) 

When  Jesus  wished  to  specify  or  particularize 
at  this  point  he  emphasized  two  things — truth 
and  life.  Before  Pilate  at  the  last  he  was  the 
King  of  the  truth,  with  everyone  who  was  on  the 
side  of  truth  listening  to  his  voice.  (Jno.  18: 
37.)  Those  who  were  constant  to  his  message 
found  out  the  truth,  and  the  truth  made  them 
free.  (Jno.  8:32.)  "His  sheep  listened  to  his 
voice,  he  knew  them,  and  they  followed  him;  and 
he  gave  them  Immortal  Life."  (Jno.  10:27,  28.) 
It  was  thus  that  he  spoke  of  those  whom  he  at- 
tracted and  inspired.  But  there  was  another 
class  which  he  addressed  in  terms  of  rebuke  and 
denunciation — "You  refuse  to  come  to  me  to  have 
Life."  (Jno.  5:40.)  "It  is  because  I  speak  the 
truth  to  you  that  you  do  not  believe  me.  You 
are  children  of  your  Father,  the  Devil,  and  you 
are  determined  to  do  what  your  father  loves  to 
do.  He  was  a  murderer  from  the  first,  and  did 
not  stand  by  the  truth,  because  there  was  no 
truth  in  him."  (Jno;  10:44,  45.) 

Coming  forth  from  the  Father  he  bore  his 
message  in  his  own  person  as  well  as  upon  his 


JESUS  THE  MEDIATOR  265 

lips.  The  demands  of  this  message  were  peremp- 
tory. The  truth  and  the  life  were  the  riches  of 
a  divinely  created  manhood,  which  was  produced 
in  every  one  who  entered  into  union  with  him  by 
yielding  himself  up  to  the  will  of  God  as  he  did. 
Entering  thus  into  God's  will  was  entering  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  to  be  made  the  possessor  of  all 
its  blessings — all  its  Truth  and  all  its  Life,  as 
these  were  progressively  revealed.  To  refuse  to 
come  into  union  with  him  thus  was  to  commit  the 
gravest  possible  offense  against  God.  It  was  to 
turn  one's  back  upon  both  his  authority  and  the 
richest  benefits  he  could  offer.  It  was  to  deny 
one's  self  an  infinite  good,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  deny  the  infinite  love  the  pleasure  and  honor 
of  bestowing  that  good. 

jJesus  saw  this  so  clearly  that  he  could  not  con- 
ceal his  disturbance  of  mind  in  view  of  it.  He 
was  deeply  pained  by  the  dishonor  that  was  thus 
put  upon  both  his  Father  and  himself,  and  the 
peril  and  loss  of  those  who  involved  themselves 
in  this  guilt.  Here  lay  the  sin  against  the  Holy 
Spirit.  It  was  a  rejection  of  the  good  and  the 
Holy  in  the  fullest  possible  recognition  of  their 
infinite  value  in  themselves. 

Jesus  made  a  clear  distinction  between  this 
and  the  rejection  of  himself  personally.  That  he 
declared  could  be  forgiven.  He  could  be  misun- 
derstood, and  so  far  as  men  refused  him  their 
confidence  and  support  because  they  did  not  know 
him  for  what  he  really  was,  they  did  it  innocently. 


266  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

But  no  man  could  consciously  turn  his  back  upon 
the  true  and  the  holy,  and  at  the  same  time  be- 
lieve himself  to  be  in  the  service  of  God.  Know- 
ing that  he  had  definitely  chosen  falsehood  in- 
stead of  truth,  he  could  not  but  know  also  that 
he  had  chosen  death  in  place  of  life.  To  do  this 
was  to  reject  God  in  himself  or  directly,  and  not 
simply  to  reject  him  as  he  could  be,  and  was, 
revealed  in  a  human  life. 

Jesus  was  God's  ambassador.  But  because  the 
credentials  he  bore  had  to  be  translated  into  terms 
of  our  humanity,  they  could  be  sincerely  doubted. 
But  truth  and  holiness,  wherever  they  stood 
clearly  revealed  before  the  eyes  of  any  man,  and 
whatever  the  thing  or  person  in  whom  they  in- 
hered might  be,  presented  an  authority  which  was 
wholly  divine,  and  were  rejected,  therefore,  at 
the  absolute  peril  of  the  soul.  (Matt.  12:32.) 
It  was  on  this  account  that  Jesus  said  at  the 
last— 

"They  have  no  excuse  for  their  sin.  .  .  . 
They  have  both  seen  and  hated  both  me  and  my 
Father.  They  hated  me  without  cause"  and  as 
"the  Way  and  the  Truth  and  the  Life."  (Jno. 
15:22,  24,  25;  14:6.)  They  have  rejected  the 
truth  which  I  have  brought  to  them,  knowing  it 
to  be  the  truth  of  God  and  they  simply  would  not 
have  the  Life  I  offered  them,  because  it  could  be 
made  theirs  only  through  their  acceptance  of  the 
Truth  itself,  which  I  announced  in  their  hearing 


JESUS  THE  MEDIATOR  267 

and  lived  before  their  eyes.  Their  rejection  of 
my  Father  is  as  complete  as  their  rejection  of 
myself. 

Paul  saw  himself  joined  to  Christ  as  an  am- 
bassador and  perceived  the  double  effect  of  his 
work  in  that  capacity.  As  it  had  been  with 
Jesus  so  was  it  with  him.  He  was  wholly  de- 
voted to  God's  will  in  the  premises,  and  he  yearned 
over  the  sinful  men  to  whom  he  had  been  sent. 
He  wished  them  saved  from  their  rebellion  and  all 
its  terrible  consequences,  but  only  on  God's  terms. 
He  had  no  dream  that  these  could  or  should  be 
changed.  It  was  his  to  present  the  Truth  and 
along  with  it  the  Life.  So  was  it  also  with  every 
other  apostle  and  evangelist  whom  God  had  as- 
sociated with  him  in  the  work.  The  choice  of 
accepting  or  rejecting  the  things  they  offered 
lay  with  those  whom  they  addressed.  And  Paul 
saw  that  in  many  cases  rejection  was  only  too 
fatally  easy  and  sure.  So  we  find  him  joining 
his  Master  in  quoting  from  Isaiah — 

"Go  to  this  nation  and  say — 

'You  will  hear  with  your  ears  without  ever  under- 
standing, 

And,  though  you  have  eyes,  you  will  see  without 
ever  perceiving/ 

For  the  mind  of  this  nation  is  grown  dense, 

And  their  ears  are  dull  of  hearing, 

Their  eyes  also  have  they  closed; 

Lest  some  day  they  should  see  with  their  eyes, 

And  with  their  ears  they  should  hear, 


268  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

And    in   their   mind    they    should    understand    and 
should  turn — and  I  should  heal  them." 

(Matt.  13:14,  15;  Acts  28:26-27.) 

We  find  him  also  voicing  his  vision,  and  his  feel- 
ings thus: 

"We  are  the  fragrance  of  Christ  ascending  to 
God — both  among  those  who  are  in  the  path  of 
Salvation  and  among  those  who  are  in  the  path 
to  Ruin.  To  the  latter  we  are  an  odor  which 
arises  from  death  and  tells  of  Death;  to  the 
former  an  odor  which  arises  from  life  and  tells 
of  Life.  But  who  is  equal  to  such  a  task?" 
(II  Cor.  2:15,  16.) 

It  is  to  Paul  that  we  owe  the  clearest  possible 
statement  of  the  way  in  which  the  office  of  in- 
tercessor found  itself  linked  with  the  work  of  the 
ambassador  or  mediator,  in  his  own  case.  After 
showing  how  the  mediatorship  of  Jesus  had  al- 
ready established  itself  as  a  transforming  and 
re-creating  agency  among  men,  and  declaring  of 
every  one  who  had  thus  been  brought  into  union 
with  Christ,  that  "he  is  a  new  creation — a  new 
being" — he  continues — 

"But  all  this  is  the  work  of  God  who  reconciled 
us  to  himself  through  Christ,  and  gave  us  the 
Ministry  of  Reconciliation.  ...  It  is,  then, 
on  Christ's  behalf  that  we  are  acting  as  am- 
bassadors, God,  as  it  were,  appealing  to  you 
through  us.  We  implore  you  on  Christ's  behalf 
—Be  reconciled  to  God."  (II  Cor.  5:17,  18,  20.) 


JESUS  THE  MEDIATOR 

To  intercede  is  to  entreat  one  person  or  set  of 
persons  on  behalf  of  another.  Here  "Christ" 
and  "God"  are  the  persons  on  behalf  of  whom  the 
entreaties  or  intercessions  are  represented  as 
being  made ;  while  the  persons  entreated,  or  inter- 
ceded with,  are  sinful  men,  the  end  aimed  at  being 
their  reconciliation  to  God.  It  was  God  who  was 
appealing  and  imploring,  and  he  was  doing  this 
through  men  whom  he  had  already  reconciled  to 
himself.  To  fit  these  men  for  this  work,  he  had 
brought  them  through  their  union  with  Christ 
into  such  active  participation  with  his  saving  de- 
sire and  purpose,  that  they  had  definitely  joined 
him  in  his  love  for  their  unsaved  fellow-men,  his 
yearnings  over  them  and  his  efforts  to  reconcile 
them  in  both  character  and  life  to  himself.  Thus 
Paul  and  his  co-workers  found  themselves  in  the 
place  of  "God's  fellow-workers!"  (1  Cor.  3:9.) 
They  were  God's  ambassadors  to  men  and  God's 
intercessors  among  men. 

Here  it  can  be  seen  very  plainly  that  the  office 
and  work  of  the  intercessor  grows  directly  out  of 
God's  love  for  sinful  men.  Their  sinfulness  had 
made  them  blind  so  that  they  could  not  see,  un- 
less their  eyes  were  opened;  deaf,  so  that  they 
could  not  hear,  unless  their  ears  were  unstopped; 
and  callous  of  heart,  so  that  they  could  not  feel, 
unless  their  hearts  were  touched  in  some  sovereign 
way.  Then  Jesus  came  as  the  great  physician — 
ambassador,  to  open  blind  eyes  by  means  of  a 
stupendous  vision,  to  unstop  deaf  ears  by  a  touch 


270  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

of  the  divine  finger,  and  to  melt  human  hearts  by 
the  oxy-hydrogen  flame  of  divine  love.  And  Jesus 
the  ambassador  became  also  Jesus  the  intercessor, 
who  pleaded  for  God  with  men,  entreating  them 
not  to  give  further  pain  to  God's  heart  by  longer 
persistence  in  the  sins  which  were  burdening  them 
more  and  more,  and  would  bring  upon  them  over- 
whelming disaster.  "Come  to  me,  all  ye  who  toil 
and  are  burdened  and  I  will  give  you  rest!" 
(Matt.  11:28).  My  Father  sent  me  to  you  be- 
cause he  loves  you,  and  he  looks  upon  you  as  his 
straying  sons  and  daughters  and  asks  you  home. 
And  Paul,  as  I  have  already  shown,  looked  upon 
himself  and  his  fellow  evangelists  as  associate  am- 
bassadors and  intercessors,  who  had  been  called 
upon  to  take  the  place  upon  the  earth  which  Jesus 
had  occupied  while  here  in  the  flesh;  so  that  they 
were  doing  their  work  "on  Christ's  behalf,"  as 
well  as  for  God. 

Here,  then,  we  have  God,  Jesus  and  the  apostles 
and  evangelists  of  the  primitive  Christian  Church 
all  set  forth  as  pleading  with  men  to  become  rec- 
onciled to  God  by  embracing  the  life  of  obedience 
to  truth  to  which  he  has  always  been  inviting 
them.  To  this  we  may  add  two  words.  The  first 
is  this.  These  agencies  are  all  still  at  work  upon 
the  unfinished  task.  And  the  second  is  that  an- 
other name  must  be  added,  namely,  that  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  who  Jesus  declared  would  come  to 
guide  into  all  truth,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
"bring  conviction  to  the  world  as  to  Sin,  and  as 


JESUS  THE  MEDIATOR  271 

to  Righteousness  and  as  to  Judgment"  on  the 
other.  So  the  purely  divine  unites  with  divinely 
filled  men  in  the  work  of  interceding  or  pleading 
with  men  still  unsaved  to  "be  reconciled  to  God." 
Such  is  the  work  of  intercession  man-ward.  Can 
we  discover  its  nature  God-ward,  if,  indeed,  there 
is  an  intercession  with  God  for  men,  as  well  an 
intercession  with  men  for  God. 

That  there  is  an  authorized  intercession  with 
God  on  the  behalf  of  men  is  a  clear  teaching  of 
the  New  Testament.  Such  intercessions  find  their 
roots  in  human  love  and  the  divine  love  alike.  To 
love  is  to  wish  well,  and  to  wish  well  is  to  ask 
all  besides  one's  self  to  aid  in  making  it  well  with 
the  one  who  is  loved.  The  more  widely,  therefore, 
love  is  diffused  the  more  intercession  will  move  out 
towards  universality.  This  is  the  thought  which 
Tennyson  expressed  when  he  wrote  in  his  "Pass- 
ing of  Arthur" — 

"For  what  are  men  better  than  sheep  or  goats 
That  nourish  a  blind  life  within  the  brain, 
If,  knowing  God,  they  lift  not  hands  of  prayer 
Both  for  themselves  and  those  who  call  them  friend? 
For  so  the  whole  round  earth  is  every  way 
Bound  by  golden  chains  about  the  feet  of  God." 

And  if  God  pleads  with  men  why  should  not  men 
plead  with  God?     If  God  needs  the  co-operation 
of  men  and  must  find  intercessors  to  secure  it  for 
him,  why  should  we  find  it  different  on  our  side? 
Taking  up  now  some  New  Testament  passages 


272  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

on  this  subject  I  may  begin  with  Paul's  word  to 
Timothy  for  the  churches  of  which  he  had  been 
given  the  oversight: 

"  First  of  all,  then,  I  urge  that  petitions, 
prayers,  intercessions  and  thanksgiving  should 
be  offered  for  every  one,  especially  for  kings 
and  all  who  are  in  high  positions."  (I  Tim.  2: 
1,  2.)  Quite  naturally  he  coupled  with  this  the 
assurance — 

"This  will  be  good  and  acceptable  in  the  eyes 
of  God  our  Savior,  whose  will  it  is  that  every  one 
should  be  saved,  and  attain  to  a  full  knowledge 
of  the  Truth."  (1  Tim.  2:3.)  The  God  who 
pleads  with  all  men  to  be  reconciled  to  him  must 
surely  wish  to  save  them,  and  delight  to  be  asked 
to  do  anything  towards  that  end. 

Next  I  would  call  attention  to  Paul's  own  in- 
tercessions on  behalf  of  the  membership  of  the 
churches  which  he  had  established  or  was  super- 
intending. He  assured  the  Colossians  that  "from 
the  very  day"  on  which  Epaphras  "told  us  of  the 
love  with  which  the  Spirit  has  inspired  you,  we 
have  never  ceased  praying  for  you,  or  asking  that 
you  may  possess  that  deeper  knowledge  of  the  will 
of  God,  which  comes  through  all  spiritual  wisdom 
and  insight."  (Col.  1 :8,  9.)  His  intercession 
for  his  Ephesian  fellow-believers  were  most  deeply 
spiritual : 

"I  kneel  before  the  Father — from  whom  all 
'fatherhood'  in  heaven  and  on  earth  derives  its 
name — and  pray  that,  in  proportion  to  the  wealth 


JESUS  THE  MEDIATOR  273 

of  his  glory,  he  will  strengthen  you  with  his 
power  by  breathing  his  Spirit  into  your  inmost 
soul,  so  that  the  Christ,  through  your  faith,  may 
make  his  home  within  your  hearts  in  love;  and  I 
pray  that  you,  now  firmly  rooted  and  established, 
may,  with  all  Christ's  people,  have  the  power  to 
comprehend  in  all  its  width  and  length  and  height 
and  depth  and  to  understand — though  it  surpasses 
all  understanding — the  love  of  Christ;  and  so  be 
filled  to  the  full  with  God  himself."  (Eph.  3: 
14-19.) 

There  is  here  the  strongest  resemblance  to 
those  intercessions  of  Jesus  in  the  Upper  Room, 
with  which  John  has  made  us  acquainted: 

"I  intercede  for  them.  .  .  .  Holy  Father, 
keep  them.  .  .  .  I  do  not  ask  thee  to  take 
them  out  of  the  world  but  to  keep  them  from 
Evil.  .  .  .  It  is  not  only  for  them  that  I  am 
interceding,  but  also  for  those  who  believe  on  me 
through  their  Message,  that  they  all  may  be 
one — that  as  thou,  Father,  art  in  union  with  me 
and  I  with  thee,  so  they  also  may  be  in  union 
with  us — and  so  the  world  may  believe  that  thou 
hast  sent  me  as  thy  Messenger."  ( Jno.  17 :9. 
11,  15,  20,  21.)  It  should  also  be  remembered 
here  that  Paul  asked  the  prayers  of  his  fellow- 
believers  for  himself,  as  did  also  the  writer  of  the 
letter  to  the  Hebrews.  (I  Thess.  5 :25 ;  II  Thess. 
3:1;  Col.  4:3;  Heb,  13:18.)  The  earliest  of  all 
the  Christian  writings  which  have  reached  us  en- 
joins upon  all  believers  mutual  confession  of  sins 


274  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

and  mutual  intercession.  (Jas.  5:16.)  And 
when  Jesus  was  passing1  into  his  agony  of  sup- 
plication for  himself  in  Gethsemane,  did  he  not 
ask  Peter  and  James  and  John  to  watch  with 
him?  And  would  not  their  praying  for  them- 
selves have  been  at  least  a  half-voiced  praying 
for  him?  Was  not  this  what  he  meant  when  he 
asked  Peter  chidingly — "What!  could  none  of 
you  watch  with  me  for  one  hour?"  (Matt.  26: 
40.) 

There  are  some  other  passages  touching  the 
mediatorship  of  Jesus  himself  to  which  I  should 
call  attention  here.  They  represent  it  as  a  con- 
tinuous heavenly  and  earthly  fact,  and  are  to  be 
found  in  I  Timothy  and  Hebrews. 

"There  is  but  one  God,  and  one  Mediator  be- 
tween God  and  men — the  man,  Christ  Jesus." 
(I  Tim.  2:5.)  It  is  well  to  note  that  here 
"Christ  Jesus"  is  described,  not  as  the  Son  of 
God,  but  as  "the  Man."  We  may  be  sure  that 
this  fact  is  not  without  significance. 

The  passages  in  Hebrews  set  before  us  the 
thing  which  he  mediates  or  brings  from  God  to 
man.  It  is  "the  Covenant"  (8:6),  "a  new  Cove- 
nant." (9:15;  12:24.)  Nor  are  we  left  in  any 
doubt  as  to  the  nature  of  this  covenant.  "This 
is  the  Covenant  that  I  will  make  with  the  People 
of  Israel — 

"After  those  days,  says  the  Lord 
'I  will  impress  my  laws  on  their  minds 


JESUS  THE  MEDIATOR  275 

And  will  inscribe  them  on  their  hearts ; 

And  I  will  be  their  God 

And  they  shall  be  my  people,  etc.'  " 

Now  to  mediate  this  Covenant  as  an  actual  life 
for  men  the  Son  of  God  necessarily  "became  a 
man  like  other  men,"  and  showedi  once  for  all  that 
our  humanity  can  receive  God's  will  in  such  a 
fashion  as  to  be  governed  by  it  at  least  as  far  as 
it  is  known,  and  thus  that  the  Sons  of  men  may  be 
made  the  Sons  of  God  in  deed  and  in  truth.  So 
the  life  which  Jesus  mediated  was  the  life  of  the 
children  of  God.  Paul  and  John  went  the  full 
length  of  clearly  stating  this  fact. 

"  'And  I  will  be  a  father  to  you, 

And  you  shall  be  my  sons  and  daughters/ 

Says  the  Lord,  the  Ruler  of  all."      (2  Cor.  6:18.) 

"Dear  friends,  we  are  God's  children  now."  (I 
Jno.  3:2.)  It  may  be  added  here  that  it  was  his 
love  for  his  human  brothers  and  his  complete  obe- 
dience to  his  Father,  or,  in  other  words,  his  un- 
swerving faithfulness  as  ambassador  and  inter- 
cessor, with  a  view  to  the  fullest  possible  communi- 
cation of  this  life,  that  Jesus  gave  over  his  body 
to  the  death  of  the  cross.  So  it  is  truly  set  down 
by  apostolic  pens  that  he  died  "on  the  behalf  of 
men"  and  "on  account  of  their  sins."  For  it  was 
their  sins  which  slew  him,  and  only  his  faithful- 
ness unto  death  could  have  supplied  them  with  the 
object  lesson  which  they  needed,  or  the  vision  of 
the  Life  in  its  full  expression.  It  is  this  same 


276  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

human  faithfulness  and  obedience  unto  death, 
which  is  represented  by  all  that  New  Testament 
phraseology,  which  is  used  to  set  forth  the  cleans- 
ing and  redeeming  power  of  the  "blood"  of  Jesus. 
It  was  a  further  vision  of  a  similar  kind  which  led 
him,  who  before  had  taken  "charge  of  the  clothes 
of  those  who  were  murdering  Stephen,"  to  write 
of  personally  "supplementing  the  afflictions  en- 
dured by  the  Christ,  for  the  sake  of  his  Body, 
the  Church" ;  and  a  later  church  father  to  de- 
clare that  "the  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed 
of  the  church."  It  is  in  this  way  that  the  bruis- 
ing of  Jesus  was  our  healing.  It  is  in  this  way 
also  that  "Jesus  Christ,  the  Righteous,  is  the 
atoning  sacrifice  for  our  sins,  and  not  for  ours 
only,  but  for  those  of  the  whole  world  besides." 
(I  Jno.  2:2.)  Jesus  overthrows  sin  by  that  di- 
vine force  of  persuasion  which  stands  forever  as- 
sociated with  his  unlimited  devotion  to  both  God 
and  men.  "If,  when  we  were  God's  enemies,  we 
were  reconciled  to  him  by  the  death  of  his  Son, 
much  more,  now  that  we  have  become  reconciled, 
shall  we  be  saved  by  virtue  of  his  Life."  (Rom. 
5:10.)  The  end  aimed  at  was  not  God's  recon- 
ciliation to  us,  but  our  reconciliation  to  God;  and 
when  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  the  means, 
we  find  that  if  the  life  of  Jesus  cannot  now  be 
rightly  viewed  apart  from  his  death,  it  is  still 
truer  that  his  death  cannot  be  properly  thought 
of  apart  from  his  life. 

Approaching   from   this   viewpoint   the   subject 


JESUS  THE  MEDIATOR  277 

of  intercession,  I  may  call  attention  to  three  pas- 
sages. The  first  is  Romans  8:34:  "He  who  died 
for  us  is  Christ  Jesus ! — or  rather  it  was  he  who 
was  raised  from  the  dead,  and  who  is  now  at  God's 
right  hand  and  is  even  pleading  on  our  behalf" ; 
the  second  is  Hebrews  7:25 — "That  is  why  he  is 
able  to  save  perfectly  those  who  come  to  God 
through  him,  living  forever,  as  he  does,  to  inter- 
cede on  their  behalf";  while — "My  children,  I  am 
writing  to  you  to  keep  you  from  sinning;  but  if 
any  one  should  sin,  we  have  one  who  can  plead 
for  us  with  the  Father — Jesus  Christ,  the  Right- 
eous" (I  Jno.  2:1)—  is  the  third.  The  thing 
contemplated  in  each  and  all  of  these  is  complete 
salvation  from  a  life  of  conscious  sinning  to  one 
of  unbroken  obedience  and  devotion  to  God,  even 
in  the  midst  of  the  sorest  trials  and  sufferings, 
which  the  malice  of  bad  men  can  invent  and  ap- 
ply ;  and  the  teaching  is  that  the  pleadings  of  the 
living  Jesus  are  mightily  helpful  in  this  direction. 
When  we  ask  for  some  more  precise  word  as  to 
how  and  why,  we  are  met  by  such  a  one  as  this — 
"So,  also,  the  Spirit  supports  us  in  our  weakness. 
We  do  not  know  even  how  to  pray  as  we  should ; 
but  the  Spirit  himself  pleads  for  us  in  sighs  that 
can  find  no  utterance.  Yet  he  who  searches  all 
our  hearts  knows  what  the  Spirit's  meaning  is, 
because  the  pleadings  of  the  Spirit  for  Christ's 
People  are  in  accordance  with  his  will."  (Rom. 
8:26,  27.)  Are  we  not  here  taught  a  doctrine 
which  modern  evolutionary  philosophy  has  begun 


278  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

the  serious  work  of  propounding?  Deep  calls  to 
deep  in  God  himself,  while  he  labors  towards  self- 
realization  in  all  portions  of  his  vast  creation. 
All  other  loves  and  yearnings  are  but  local  ex- 
pressions of  those  which  in  him  are  infinite  and  all 
pervading.  The  love  and  yearning  of  Jesus  him- 
self are  local  and  human,  and  derive  their  whole 
saving  power  from  that  infinite  source  which  he 
named  "The  Living  Father  who  sent  me."  (Jno. 
6:44,  57.) 

The  final  word,  therefore,  is  this.  All  media- 
tion and  intercession,  the  aim  of  which  is  the  in- 
crease and  absolute  ultimate  triumph  of  right- 
eousness in  every  being  and  every  relationship  ex- 
isting in  our  vast  universe,  moves  forth  from  God 
and  back  to  God,  as  a  portion  of  that  long  toil 
which  he  has  made  his  in  the  interests  at  the  same 
time  of  himself  and  of  all  besides.  And  every  be- 
ing who  is  consciously  taken  up  into  the  task  may 
know  that  he  is  God's  fellow-worker  towards  his 
own  self-realization,  the  self-realization  of  his  fel- 
low men,  and,  through  these,  towards  the  self- 
realization  of  God  himself. 

"That  God  may  be  all  in  all"  is  the  unceasing 
cry  of  all  the  ages,  till  "the  enoV' 


XVII 
JESUS  AND  BIBLICAL  ETHICS 

What  a  man  thinks  of  his  Bible  from  the  view- 
point of  ethical  codes  must  largely  depend  upon 
the  theory  he  holds  as  to  the  main  purpose  of  God 
ini  blessing  the  world  with  the  book.  If  he  believes 
that  God's  chief  intention  in  the  matter  was  to 
bestow  upon  humanity,  once  and  for  all,  a  com- 
plete set  of  rules  for  our  guidance  in  every  par- 
ticular of  every  relationship  of  our  increasingly 
complex  lives,  he  will  consult  the  book  continually 
with  the  expectation  of  finding  within  it  the  pre- 
cise directions  he  needs  in  connection  with  each 
step  that  he  takes.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
looks  upon  his  Bible  as  the  principal  vehicle  of 
that  revelation  of  himself  to  men,  as  Creator,  Up- 
holder, Moral  Governor,  and  Savior,  which  God 
saw  was  absolutely  essential  to  their  highest  de- 
velopment and  well-being;  and  as  containing  only 
such  moral  precepts  as  from  time  to  time  repre- 
sented the  growing  needs  of  the  people,  through 
whose  seers  this  revelation  was  given;  he  will, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  do  these  two  things 
in  his  own  interests :  First,  he  will  study  the 
book  principally  to  learn  all  it  can  tell  him  about 
God,  particularly  as  he  stands  revealed  in  the  life 
2T9 


280  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

and  teaching  of  his  Son,  Jesus  Christ.  And  sec- 
ondly, he  will  gather  from  the  book  all  he  can  find 
there  of  a  nature  suitable  for  his  guidance  in  the 
affairs  of  his  twentieth-century  life;  and  when  he 
sees  it  failing  him  at  some  scores  of  points,  he 
will  look  into  the  laws  of  his  own  church  and 
country,  in  the  full  belief  that  the  same  God  who 
guided  the  Israelite  is  guiding  individuals  and 
peoples  still,  by  giving  them  new  laws  suitable  to 
their  various  additional  requirements. 

Few,  if  any,  to-day  actually  hold  any  other 
position  toward  the  Bible  than  the  second  of  those 
which  I  have  just  described.  The  debates  which 
have  arisen  over  the  question  of  the  Bible  and 
ethical  codes  have  grown  out  of  the  fact  that  some 
men  still  think  that  they  regard  the  first  position 
I  have  set  forth  as  the  correct  one,  though  they 
do  not  really  so  regard  it  at  all. 

First  of  all,  then,  let  me  say  that  if  we  could 
find  a  man  who  really  holds  that  the  Bible  con- 
tains this  complete  and  perfect  code,  we  should 
have  in  our  presence  an  individual  capable  of  be- 
lieving that  all  necessary  original  thinking  on 
questions  of  moral  conduct  was  done  by  a  few 
members  of  one  small  family  of  mankind,  before 
the  end  of  the  second  century  A.D.  The  Bible  is 
a  product  of  the  Israelitish  mind  as  divinely  en- 
lightened. This  process  of  divine  illumination 
on  the  foregoing  theory  came  to  an  end  with  the 
completion  of  the  New  Testament.  This  means 
that  from  that  date  to  the  end  of  human  history 


JESUS  AND  BIBLICAL  ETHICS 

there  could  exist  no  need  for,  and  therefore  no 
experience  of,  such  divine  illumination  as  was  im- 
parted to  and  enjoyed  by  the  seers  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments.  The  question  does  not  lie 
here  between  the  illumination  experienced  by  Je- 
sus and  that  enjoyed  by  the  Church  from  the  day 
of  Pentecost  onward,  but  between  the  illumina- 
tion bestowed  upon  the  Church  from  Pentecost 
to  the  end  of  the  apostolic  period,  and  that  ex- 
perienced by  the  same  church  from  the  end  of  the 
apostolic  period  to  the  close  of  the  Christian  era. 
For  Jesus,  according  to  John,  distinctly  informed 
him  and  his  fellow  apostles  that  he  had  not 
taught  them  everything,  but  that  they  would 
themselves  enjoy  illumination  by  the  same  Spirit 
that  had  made  him  the  teacher  they  had  found 
him  to  be.  By  that  Spirit  and  not  by  himself, 
they  would  be  guided  into  all  they  needed  to  know. 
Is  there  anyone  who  really  believes  that  the 
church  during  this  brief  period  actually  faced  and 
permanently  settled  every  question  with  a  moral 
aspect  that  would  become  a  practical  one  before 
the  end? 

When  one  speaks  of  questions  with  a  moral  as- 
pect he  opens  up  a  large  field.  The  world  of 
thought  and  action  was  once  divided  by  Christian 
thinkers  into  two  departments,  which  were  desig- 
nated as  sacred  and  secular.  This  is  no  longer 
done  with  any  defmiteness,  for  a  certain  divine  il- 
lumination has  made  it  clear  that  thought  and 
action  along  the  "secular"  lines  demand  the  guid- 


282  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

ance  of  conscience  and  the  approval  of  God,  and 
must,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  also  distinctly 
"sacred."  God  is  king  of  the  whole  life,  or  he  is 
no  king  at  all. 

In  morals  the  personal  equation  is  one  of  no 
small  dimensions.  It  can  be  seen  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  choice  of  one's  life-work,  and  it  is 
very  obtrusive  sometimes  in  connection  with  the 
questions  of  foods  and  recreations.  It  is  gener- 
ally recognized,  for  instance,  that  some  men  must 
be  preachers  of  the  gospel,  or  lead  a  life  of  con- 
tinuous rebellion  against  God.  It  is  also  believed 
that  some  of  these  preachers  must  go  to  foreign 
lands  with  their  message,  or  live  under  the  same 
condemnation.  It  is  held,  too,  that,  considered 
as  a  class,  each  of  these  men  knows  for  himself, 
apart  from  and  often  against  the  opinion  and 
wish  of  his  fellow-men,  that  he  is  "called"  to  this 
service.  Carey  is  a  leading  example.  But 
whence  came  Carey's  call?  From  what  ethical 
code?  "Quench  not  the  Spirit"  would  guide  him 
after  the  call  reached  him.  But  no  word  of  the 
New  Testament  laid  upon  William  Carey  mission- 
ary service  as  his  life-work.  God  spoke  to  him 
directly,  as  truly  as  he  did  to  the  apostle  Paul,  or 
any  ancient  prophet. 

I  shall  not  tarry  over  the  fact  that  in  matters 
of  foods  and  recreations  the  duty  of  abstinence 
is  often  determined  by  purely  personal  considera- 
tions, which  no  ethical  code  could  by  any  possi- 
bility deal  with  in  a  satisfactory  way.  "Thou 


JESUS  AND  BIBLICAL  ETHICS     283 

shalt"  reaches  one  man  and  "Thou  shalt  not"  an- 
other in  connection  with  the  same  act.  It  is  a 
matter  of  tradition,  if  not  of  history,  that  John 
Wesley  quit  the  pursuit  of  mathematics  to  avoid 
sinning  against  his  own  soul.  The  Spirit  of  God 
working  through  intellect  and  conscience,  and 
often  mysteriously  instructing  men,  still  illumi- 
nates and  guides  the  individual.  There  can,  in  the 
very  nature  of  things,  be  no  complete  ethical  code 
for  the  government  of  any  individual  life.  And 
God's  plan  for  governing  the  race  is,  to  an  ex- 
tent not  generally  recognized,  that  of  dealing 
with  its  members  individually  and  directly.  Ethi- 
cal codes,  therefore,  do  not  deal  with  the  individual 
as  an  individual,  so  much  as  they  meet  him  as  a 
member  of  the  social  organism. 

Is,  then,  the  ethical  code  of  the  Bible  in  all  its 
particulars  fitted  to  govern  men  of  every  clime 
and  age  to  the  end  of  human  history?  And  is  it 
complete?  In  other  words,  does  it  provide  for 
every  phase  of  human  activity  that  has  called,  or 
will  call,  for  righteous  legislative  control? 

The  first  fact  calling  for  our  attention  here  is 
that,  when  one  is  asked  for  the  code  we  are  now 
to  discuss  definitely,  he  can  only  reply  that  its 
various  items  may  be  found  scattered  through 
the  various  documents  of  which  the  Bible  is  com- 
posed, and  that  they  cannot  be  codified,  or  set 
forth  as  a  distinct  body  of  laws,  without  the  ex- 
penditure of  much  labor.  The  Bible  is  not  an 
ethical  code.  It  is  something  higher.  It  con- 


284  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

tains  our  most  glorious  revelation  of  God.  As- 
sociated with  that  in  the  volume,  however,  are 
many  ethical  precepts.  But  any  man  who  at- 
tempts the  task  of  codifying  these  will  find  him- 
self compelled  to  do  much  sifting,  for  Christ  and 
his  apostles  dealt  rather  freely  with  at  least  some 
portions  of  the  Mosaic  legislation.  One  of  the 
latter,  Paul,  wrote  of  Christ  that  he  "broke  down 
the  barrier  that  separated  Jew  and  Gentile  and  in 
his  human  nature  put  an  end  to  the  cause  of  en- 
mity between  them — the  Law  with  its  injunctions 
and  ordinances."  (Eph.  2:15.)  To  this  he  adds 
in  another  place,  "He  cancelled  the  bond  which 
was  against  us — the  bond  which  consisted  of  or- 
dinances— and  which  was  directly  hostile  to  us. 
He  has  taken  it  out  of  the  way  by  nailing  it  to 
the  cross."  (Col.  2:15.) 

There  has  been  much  debate  as  to  how  far  Paul 
really  went  in  these  statements  and  others  which 
might  be  cited.  But  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted 
that  he  regarded  his  Lord  as  having,  by  his 
earthly  life  and  his  law  of  Love,  not  only  set 
aside  the  elaborate  ritual  of  Mosaism,  but  super- 
seded the  whole  moral  code  also,  through  the  sub- 
stitution for  it  of  the  single  inclusive  principle 
of  love.  Consequently  we  find  that  his  own  chief 
aim  was  neither  to  master  the  ethical  code  of  the 
past,  nor  to  produce  a  perfect  one  for  the  guid- 
ance of  himself  and  his  fellow-believers,  but  to 
build  up  both  himself  and  them  in  the  knowledge 
of  Christ.  He  saw  that  "Christ  has  brought 


JESUS  AND  BIBLICAL  ETHICS     285 

Law  to  an  end,  so  that  righteousness  may  be  ob- 
tained by  every  one  who  believes  in  him"  (Rom.  10 : 
4) ,  and  was  a  legalist  no  longer.  He  turned  from 
the  Law  to  the  Life,  to  find  a  wealth  both  of  in- 
formation and  of  motive  touching  righteousness 
to  which  he  would  have  otherwise  been  a  stranger. 
The  least  we  can  say  is  that  the  ethical  code  in 
which  he  had  been  reared  became  to  Paul  a  poor, 
dwarfed  thing,  big  enough  still  to  awe  the  man 
who  loved  transgression,  but  too  unenlightened 
and  feeble  to  help  greatly  the  Christian  believer 
in  his  pursuit  of  the  holiness  of  his  Master.  (I 
Tim.  1:9.) 

So  the  ethical  code  of  the  Old  Testament  met 
with  disparagement  at  the  hands  of  the  most  in- 
tellectual and  voluminous  of  the  New  Testament 
writers.  We  cannot  present  the  whole  truth,  how- 
ever, without  stating  besides,  that  he  disparaged  it 
only  when  he  compared  it  with  the  one  positively 
and  resplendently  perfect  human  life.  Considered 
in  itself,  he  both  valued  and  used  it.  His  letters 
contain  many  ethical  precepts,  original  and 
quoted.  He  knew  that  the  church  needed  them. 
He  even  accepted  for  his  Gentile  converts  the 
regulations  passed  by  the  Jerusalem  council  for 
their  guidance,  though  soon  afterwards  he  assured 
at  least  one  of  his  churches  that  the  man  who 
ignored  them  with  a  free  conscience  in  a  certain 
particular  showed  a  more  vigorous  and  intelligent 
faith  than  they  did  who  obeyed  at  this  point. 
(1  Cor.  8:6-8.) 


286  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

I  should  now  attempt  to  define  the  term  ethical 
code,  for  it  is  probably  at  this  point  the  chief 
difficulty  has  arisen.  An  ethical  code  is  a  body 
of  precepts  or  laws  touching  conduct,  of  such  a 
sort  that  they  make  an  appeal  to  the  conscience. 
Every  law  which  makes  this  appeal  belongs  to 
the  ethical  code  of  the  man  who  receives  it.  The 
appeal  arises  from  the  recognized  righteousness 
which  the  law  represents.  The  law  may  deal  with 
any  phase  of  human  life  whatever — religious, 
political,  social,  sanitary,  or  sexual.  All  law  that 
through  its  apparent  Tightness  appeals  to  the 
conscience,  is  ethical.  All  legal  codes  are  ethical 
codes!  so  far  forth  as  they  represent  righteousness. 
To  hold  any  other  ground  is  to  introduce  con- 
fusion into  both  thought  and  life.  Sanitary 
laws,  for  instance,  are  as  sacred,  though  not  as 
fundamental,  as  religious  laws.  Man's  original 
and  supreme  relationship  is  Godward,  and  has 
to  do  with  himself  as  distinguished  from  the  mate- 
rial body,  which  he  now  inhabits  and  uses  as  his 
instrument  for  the  accomplishment  of  his  work  in 
this  world  of  matter.  But  he  owes  to  his  body, 
as  Paul  points  out,  the  duty  before  God  of  nour- 
ishing, cherishing,  guarding,  and  controlling  it, 
not  only  as  his  own  abode  and  instrument  but  also 
as  the  very  temple  of  God  himself.  Every  human 
relationship  is!  sacred  and  every  duty  moral.  The 
Mosaic  legislation  in  all  its  phases  rests  firmly  upon 
the  recognition  of  this  fact.  "Thus  saith  Jeho- 
vah" is  its  very  keynote.  It  may  be  further  said, 


JESUS  AND  BIBLICAL  ETHICS     287 

too,  that  the  voice  of  conscience  and  the  recog- 
nized voice  of  God  never  conflict,  because  the 
former  is  so  constituted  that  of  necessity  it  makes 
itself  an  echo  of  the  latter.  It  is  only  when  the 
voice  of  God  is  not  recognized  by  it,  or  has  not 
yet  reached  it,  that  conscience  directs  into  wrong 
paths.  The  voice  of  conscience,  therefore,  what- 
ever else  it  may  stand  for,  represents  all  that  men 
have  learned  of  the  will  of  God,  and  when  God 
speaks  to  men  at  all,  he  wakes  up  their  consciences 
to  speak  for  him.  This  is  true  for  all  the  ages. 
To  forget  or  ignore  it  is  to  enter  into  darkness 
and  pass  on  to  disaster.  Consequently  all  legisla- 
tion which  is  recognized  as  righteous  is  looked 
upon  as  a  gift  of  God  to  those  who  receive  it,  and 
for  the  time  being  at  least  men  rest  and  rejoice 
in  it. 

God  legislates  for  each  time  and  people  through 
the  best  combination  of  intellect  and  conscience 
then  and  there  available.  So  all  divine  laws  are 
at  the  same  time  human,  though  it  is  by  no  means 
true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  all  human  laws  are 
also  divine.  Paul  saw  how  other  peoples  besides 
his  own  were  met  in  this  matter,  and  provided 
with  an  illumination  and  guidance,  which  they 
often  sadly  misprized.  (Rom.  1:19-21;  2:14,  15.) 
And  one  of  the  things  we  are  coming  to  see  clearly 
is  that,  as  God  dealt  with  these,  so  he  dealt  with 
Israel  itself.  "At  many  times  and  in  many  ways 
.  .  .  by  the  Prophets  and  then  by  his  Son" 
(Heb.  1:1)  he  brought  their  intellect  and  con- 


288  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

science  to  the  recognition  and  assertion  of  higher 
and  wider  applications  of  the  great  principles 
which  should  govern  all  human  activities.  Prog- 
ress is  one  law  of  our  race  which  never  grows 
old,  never  dies,  and  never  ceases  its  operations. 
Many  a  legislative  enactment  dies  through  being 
superseded  by  a  better,  or  because  men  march  out 
of  sight  of  it,  leaving  it  behind  to  perish  by  the 
wayside.  Progress  is  the  fruit  of  God's  working 
in  men  and  men's  working  with  God. 

We  may  now  ask  how  the  ethical  code  of  the 
Bible  has  fared  in  this  respect.  Has  it  had  the 
experience  of  all  other  codes?  Or  does  it  stand 
forth  to-day  as  the  one  magnificent  exception?  It 
is  no  part  of  my  present  undertaking  to  deal 
with  this  question  exhaustively.  All  I  need  to 
do  is  to  cite  one  or  two  instances  in1  which  Israel's 
ethical  code  has  been  left  behind.  To  begin  with, 
then,  our  Lord  dismissed  the  laws  of  Mosaism 
governing  divorce  and  the  requital  of  injuries, 
and  also  the  one  touching  oaths.  The  sanitary 
and  land  laws  of  Israel,  good  as  they  were  upon 
the  whole,  were  left  behind  in  a  body  by  the  fol- 
lowers of  Christ,  and  that  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  first  great  leaders  among  them  were 
Jews.  Not  even  circumcision  was  allowed  to  sur- 
vive. For  a  little  while  blood  and  the  flesh  of 
strangled  animals,  along  with  foods  offered  in 
sacrifice  to  idols,  were  forbidden  to  Christians ; 
but  almost  at  once,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out, 
Paul  attacked  the  last-named  regulation,  and  be- 


JESUS  AND  BIBLICAL  ETHICS     289 

fore  long  they  all  passed  into  oblivion,  though  the 
word  in  regard  to  them  in  the  beginning  was, 
"We  have,  therefore,  decided,  under  the  guidance 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,"  or  "It  seemed  good  to  the 
Holy  Ghost  and  to  us."  At  this  point  New 
Testament  legislation  has  been  dismissed  along 
with  that  of  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  note,  too,  that  instead  of  a  "Thou  shalt 
not  enslave  thy  fellow-man"  in  the  Decalogue,  a 
law  immediately  follows  that  code  permitting 
slavery  under  restrictions,  that  is  to  say,  licensing 
it.  Jesus  never  called  up  that  license  law  for 
condemnation  in  the  days  !  of  his  flesh.  His 
apostles,  too,  worked  under  it  and  other  like  legis- 
lation, with  never  a  thought  of  its  replacement  by 
universal  manumission,  so  far  as  we  can  tell.  And 
no  blame  is  due  them  because  of  this.  License  law 
is  the  beginning  of  prohibition,  and  those  who  cen- 
sure it  are  simply!  out  of  patience  with  it,  perhaps 
not  too  soon,  because  it  is  not  also  the  end.  Yet 
after  much  painful  toil  Christendom  climbed  at 
length  to  the  place  where,  so  far  as  she  herself 
is  concerned,  she  left  behind  and  below  her,  not 
only  that  law  itself,  but  also  all  Paul's  and  Peter's 
inspired  regulations  for  Christian  slaves  and  their 
Christian  masters.  Every  intelligent  man  knows 
these  things,  and  knowing  them  believes,  whether 
he  realizes  it  or  not,  that  some  portions  of  the 
ethical  code  of  the  New  Testament,  as  well  as  of 
the  Old,  were  never  adopted  to  be  permanent. 
I  may  now  deal  with  the  other  question  which 


290  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

I  have  undertaken  to  discuss.  Is  the  ethical  code 
of  the  Bible  complete?  In  other  words,  does  it 
provide  for  every  phase  of  human  activity  that 
has  called,  or  will  call,  for  righteous  legislative 
control ? 

In  answering  the  first  question  I  have  also  an- 
swered this,  but  not  pointedly.  I  shall,  therefore, 
proceed  to  deal  with  it  specifically,  with  the  aid 
of  two  illustrative  instances.  At  the  Anglican 
Synod  in  New  Brunswick,  recently,  one  of  the 
rural  deans  took  issue  with  the  bishop  on  the  ques- 
tion of  the  prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic,  ground- 
ing his  argument  upon  the  fact  that  this  traffic 
comes  in  for  no  condemnation  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. We  must  confess  that  the  rural  dean  was 
correct  in  this  premise  of  his  argument,  and,  as 
I  have  already  pointed  out,  he  might  with  perfect 
truthfulness  have  added  that  the  New  Testament 
is  equally  deficient  when  we  come  to  the  institution 
of  slavery.  Nevertheless  the  modern  command, 
"Thou  shalt  not  enslave  thy  fellow,"  is  felt  to- 
day to  be  quite  as  sacred  and  binding  as  "Thou 
shalt  not  steal"  or  "Thou  shalt  not  bear  false 
witness  against  thy  neighbor."  Besides  this,  all 
who  are  even  fairly  read  in  the  history  of  the 
struggle  against  slavery  as  an  institution  know 
how  the  Bible  was  used  by  the  pro-slavery  advo- 
cates in  its  favor.  Their  argument  was  that  an 
institution  which  the  Bible  licensed  could  never 
be  sanely  regarded  as  marked  out  by  God  for  de- 
struction. The  thing  they  did  not  know  was 


JESUS  AND  BIBLICAL  ETHICS     291 

that  God  did  not  complete  his  work  as  lawgiver 
in  Bible  times,  but  was  working  still  through  the 
intellects  and  consciences  of  his  own,  toward  the 
annihilation  of  every  institution  and  habit  which 
is  opposed  to  the  highest  welfare  of  our  race. 
The  rural  dean  in  Fredericton  was  walking  in  a 
like  darkness.  And  when  one  of  the  lay  members 
of  the  Synod'  retorted  that  he  did  not  care  whether 
the  Scott  or  Canada  Temperance  Act  was  in  the 
Bible  or  not,  he  showed  his  faith  in  the  fact  that 
God  is  guiding  our  civilization  to-day  as  really 
as  he  guided  either  Israel  or  the  Christian  Church 
at  the  beginning.  One  need  only  add  that  when 
at  length  Christendom,  as  a  whole,  finds  itself  liv- 
ing under  an  ethical  code,  one  of  the  most  recent 
additions  to  which  will  be  "Thou  shalt  sell  no 
intoxicating  beverage,"  all  the  truly  enlightened 
will  rejoice  together  that  this  command  also  came 
from  God  in  the  same  general  manner  as  those 
previously  received  by  our  race,  and  that  others 
will  follow  as  they  are  needed. 

That  the  Bible  contains  all  truth  necessary  for 
the  salvation  of  the  soul  can  be  gladly  accepted. 
It  may  also  be  affirmed  with  the  utmost  confidence, 
that  it  far  surpasses  all  other  ancient  writings 
in  the  richness  and  variety  of  its  ethical  precepts, 
and  that  the  New  Testament  is  unique  in  the  em- 
phasis which  it  lays  upon  love  as  the  great  govern- 
ing principle  in  all  right  conduct,  and  the  very 
heart  of  every  righteous  disposition.  This,  how- 
ever,; is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  claim  that 


292  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

it  contains  an  ethical  code  lofty  enough  and  com- 
plete enough  for  the  guidance  in  all  things  of  the 
highest  Christian  civilization;  for  this  claim  vir- 
tually denies  God's  immutable  law  of  progress, 
and  a  host  of  incontestable  facts  besides. 

In  regard  to  those  fresh  additions  to  our  ethi- 
cal code,  which  we  need  from  time  to  time  to  guide 
us  in  connection  with  the  various  phases  of  our 
advancing  civilization,  and  which  represent  a 
righteousness  too  large  to  have  been  set  forth 
by  any  seer  or  apostle  of  the  older  time,  we  need 
entertain  no  worries.  God  himself  takes  care  of 
these,  and  they  always  come  to  us  when  the  time 
is  ripe,  like  the  morning  sun  when  he  breaks 
through  black  thunder  clouds  to  bless  us  with  his 
beams.  On  the  other  hand,  the  problem  how  we 
may  decide  as  to  precisely  what  is  permanent,  and 
what  merely  temporary,  in  the  ethical  code  of  the 
book  we  love  most,  is  not  an  easy  one.  Mistakes 
have  been  made  and  will  continue  to  be  made  here. 
Still  we  have,  as  qualified  to  hearten  us  for  this 
task,  every  divine  fact  which  God  has  been  able 
to  place  within  the  range  of  our  limited  vision. 
The  Christ  life  looms  larger  as  the  years  pass. 
Those  perfect  religious  and  moral  principles,  con- 
sisting of  "the  first  of  all  the  commandments 
.  .  .  and  the  second,"  are  still  with  us.  On 
our  lips  is  the  word  Immanuel,  and,  whether  we 
realize  it  or  not,  God  himself  with  all  his  righteous- 
ness, his  wisdom,  and  his  love,  enswathes  and  pos- 
sesses us,  as  the  very  life  of  our  life. 

When  modern  science  was  born  some  men  were 


JESUS  AND  BIBLICAL  ETHICS     293 

pagan  enough  to  think  that  it  had  proved  that, 
after  his  work  of  creation,  God  either  emptied 
himself  out  of  the  physical  universe,  to  give  free 
play  to  a  certain  set  of  physical  laws,  or  stayed 
on  only  to  play  the  poor  part  of  an  observer. 
Theologians  helped  to  overthrow  that  notion,  but 
some  of  the  theologians  themselves  still  clung  to 
an  old  notion  of  their  own  that,  after  God  had 
got  himself  seers  and  lawgivers  from  among  a 
small,  but  wonderful  family  of  Asiatics,  that  was, 
through  the  longer  portion  of  the  period  both 
idolatrous  and  corrupt,  and  so  blind  and  rebel- 
lious at  its  close,  that  it  had  to  be  scourged  out 
of  its  territories  and  chased  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  he  retired  from  his  active  government  of 
men,  leaving  them  as  their  sole  and  sufficient  writ- 
ten guide  to  the  end,  only  the  ethical  code  given 
them  through  these  same  splendid  old-time  Asiat- 
ics. It  is  well  for  us  that  these  Asiatics  them- 
selves entertained  no  such  idea,  and  that  we  are 
beginning  to  understand  our  Christ  and  his  apos- 
tles at  this  point.  To  be  without  God  in  the 
world,  even  when  one  has  him  in  the  church,  is 
to  live  as  a  pagan,  and  usually  as  a  pessimist,  with 
no  large  and  worthy  hopes.  But  the  new  day  has 
dawned,  which  is  to  reveal  more  and  more  clearly 
the  fact  that  in  Jesus  Christ  are  hid  all  the  fur- 
ther treasures  of  legislative  wisdom  and  knowl- 
edge, which  our  race  will  call  for  in  its  long 
climb  towards  perfection. 

A  brief  chapter  will  now  be  devoted  to  the  fur- 
ther discussion  of  this  one  point. 


XVIII 

JESUS  AND  THE  PERFECT  ETHICAL 
CODE 

I  shall  begin  at  the  beginning.  What  is  this 
perfect  ethical  code?  Is  it  a  thing  of  the  past, 
present  or  distant  future?  And  what  relation, 
if  any,  does  Jesus  bear  to  it? 

In  answering  these  questions  one  may  begin 
negatively  and  say  that  an  ethical  code  is  not 
a  set  of  ethical  principles,  any  one  of  which  may 
be  applied  to  a  variety  of  actions  without  actu- 
ally having  been  made  binding  in  connection  with 
any  of  them.  Legislators  sometimes  proceed  by 
way  of  resolution  and  the  affirmation  of  great 
principles,  as  Disraeli  attempted  to  do  when  he 
made  that  famous  "leap  in  the  dark,"  which  re- 
sulted in  the  passage  of  the  British  Reform  Bill 
in  1867;  but  they  never  produce  even  the  first 
item  of  a  code  until  they  begin  to  make  one  or 
more  of  these  principles  binding  upon  men,  in 
connection  with  one  or  more  of  their  various 
activities.  When  a  few  years  ago  the  Canadian 
government  at  Ottawa  affirmed  by  a  large  major- 
ity that  the  prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic  was 
desirable  for  the  whole  Dominion,  they  added 
nothing  whatever  to  the  code  of  the  country,  and 
294 


JESUS  AND  THE  ETHICAL  CODE     295 

the  traffic  remained  as  free  as  before.  The  par- 
liamentary affirmation  that  no  man  ought  to  sell 
intoxicating  drinks,  must  be  changed  into  the 
affirmation  that  no  man  shall  do  it  without  mak- 
ing himself  liable  to  certain  serious  penalties,  be- 
fore it  can  take  its  place  in  the  ethical  code  of 
the  state  or  church  which  the  parliament  governs. 
Apart  from  the  nature  of  their  sanctions  or 
penalties,  there  is  practically  no  difference  be- 
tween a  legal  code  and  an  ethical  one,  for  each 
represents  righteousness  as  righteousness  is  under- 
stood to  apply  to  the  various  relations  of  human 
life  at  the  time  and  place  to  which  the  code  be- 
longs. Such  a  code,  therefore,  may  represent 
the  authority  of  a  state  or  a  church,  or  of  both 
acting  together  or  supplementing  each  other. 
Any  particular  code  of  laws  is  ethical  in  reality 
precisely  as  far  as  it  represents  what  is  right  in 
itself  between  one  human  being  and  another,  and 
between  each  human  being  and  God  in  their  multi- 
plied relationships.  And  any  code  to  attain  per- 
fection must  possess  two  characteristics.  It  must 
represent  absolutely  nothing  but  righteousness, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  it  must  represent  all  of 
righteousness,  on  the  other.  It  must  contain 
nothing  either  false  or  evil,  and  it  must  be  com- 
plete. It  must  condemn  everything  that  ought 
to  be  condemned,  and  enjoin  everything  that 
ought  to  be  commanded  and  done.  As  long  as 
it  is  lacking  in  either  direction  it  remains  im- 
perfect. 


296  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Does  this  mean  that  the  perfect  ethical  code 
can  be  realized  and  applied  only  in  connection 
with  a  perfect  human  society?  One  can  sup- 
pose the  existence  of  a  person  capable  of  pro- 
ducing this  perfect  code,  long  before  its  highest 
portions  could  be  anywhere  applied,  but  that  such 
a  person  would  actually  produce  it  at  such  a 
time  is  extremely  doubtful;  for  there  is  an  econ- 
omy in  the  moral  as  well  as  the  physical  govern- 
ment of  this  planet,  which  makes  it  pretty  certain 
that  no  ethical  instrument  will  be  forthcoming 
until  it  represents  an  existing  need.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  moment  any  law  is  actually  re- 
quired, it  is  sure  to  find  a  framer.  Our  business 
just  now,  however,  is  not  to  speculate,  but  to  look 
into  facts.  What  relation  then  does  Jesus  bear 
to  the  perfect  ethical  code? 

Our  first  answer  is  that  he  did  not  frame  it,  and 
never  attempted  that  task.  Like  other  wise  men 
he  simply  dealt  with  conditions  as  he  found  them. 
He  had  no  opportunity  for  giving  laws  to  men 
as  members  of  the  state,  because  his  fellow-citi- 
zens rejected  him.  Not  even  one  city  stood  by 
him.  The  moment  his  aims  were  understood  he 
was  pronounced  an  impossibility  in  politics.  This 
happened  everywhere,  until  he  was  adjudged  by 
the  rulers  of  his  nation  worthy  of  only  one  place 
— a  cross  outside  Jerusalem  between  two  robbers, 
who  also  hung  upon  crosses.  He  gave  no  laws 
for  the  care  of  the  body  considered  in  itself — 
not  one  word  on  diet  or  medicine  or  surgery  or 


JESUS  AND  THE  ETHICAL  CODE    297 

sanitation,  though  he  showed  a  deep  interest  in 
the  physical  health  and  well-being  of  men.  On 
matters  connected  with  the  training  and  nurture 
of  the  intellect,  too,  he  was  all  but  absolutely 
silent.  He  did  teach  that  a  man  must  consent 
to  obey  the  truth  which  reached  him,  or  become 
blind  and  deaf  and  past  feeling  in  its  presence, 
but  he  laid  down  no  rules  for  school-masters  and 
school-mistresses,  or  for  parents  interested  in  the 
intellectual  development  of  their  children.  And 
apart  from  his  teachings  on  forgiveness,  he  gave 
no  hints  as  to  what  are  the  true  methods  in  the 
treatment  of  criminals.  Yet  any  human  code 
which  is  to  reach  perfection  must  deal  in  the  most 
thorough  and  exhaustive  manner  with  all  these 
phases  of  human  existence. 

Jesus  did  not  even  meddle  with  some  matters 
which  men  to-day  regard  as  of  vast  moral  impor- 
tance. Slavery  and  the  drink  habit  and  traffic 
were  two  of  the  greatest  blots  on  the  civilization 
of  his  time,  but  no  word  of  his  in  regard  to  either 
has  crossed  the  centuries  to  us.  The  slave  we 
know  he  pitied  was  the  bond-slave  of  sin.  Nor 
did  he  blaze  forth  against  political  despotisms,  al- 
though he  counselled  the  twelve  to  avoid  their 
spirit  and  cultivate  instead  the  spirit  of  lowly 
service  which  he  was  constantly  exemplifying  under 
their  gaze. 

With  all  these  facts  before  us  it  is  quite  clear 
that  Jesus  did  not  play  the  part  of  the  ordinary 
lawgiver,  but  accepted  the  political,  social  and 


298  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

even  religious  situation  as  he  found  it,  and  al- 
most in  its  entirety.  Indeed  one  of  his  definite 
words  at  the  end  of  his  career  was  this — "The 
Teachers  of  the  Law  and  Pharisees  now  occupy 
the  chair  of  Moses.  Therefore,  practice  and  lay 
to  heart  everything  that  they  tell  you."  (Matt. 
23:2.) 

How  is  it  then  that  Jesus  has  been  regarded 
as  the  supreme  human  lawgiver  by  such  men  as 
Tolstoi,  for  instance?  Because  the  few  injunc- 
tions which  he  did  lay  upon  his  followers  touched 
life  in  the  most  vital  way.  He  was  the  most  con- 
vinced of  all  believers  in  the  principle  of  evolution 
as  it  applies  in  the  realm  of  legislation.  So  he 
simply  went  to  the  sacred  books  of  his  nation, 
drew  from  them  two  sentences  and  declared  these 
the  one  fountain  of  law  for  all  time.  Then  he 
proceeded  to  show  how  obedience  to  these  prin- 
ciples would  mold  the  inward  and  outward  life 
of  men  in  a  few  of  their  phases  and  directions. 
Here  again  he  made  no  mistakes,  though  in  one  or 
two  essential  particulars  he  went  far  in  advance 
of  his  time.  His  laws  forbidding  every  form  of 
violence  will  never,  because  they  can  never,  be  even 
properly  understood,  until  men  shall  at  length 
have  reached  the  point  where  they  will  obey  them 
completely.  Then  men  will  also  perceive  the  na- 
ture of  his  temptation  to  make  the  kingdoms  of 
the  world  his  own  by  becoming  a  ruler  after  the 
fashion  of  his  own  and  succeeding,  as  well  as  previ- 
ous, times,  and  honor  him  as  the  Prince  of  Peace 


JESUS  AND  THE  ETHICAL  CODE    299 

indeed.  Even  to-day  it  is  confessed  on  every  hand 
that  he  was  in  himself  the  incarnation  of  all  the 
law  he  voiced,  and  more.  It  is  also  acknowledged 
that  legislative  authority  resides  nowhere  in  such 
strength  as  in  the  spirit  and  conduct  of  a  human 
life.  Men  are  so  constituted  that  they  feel  their 
sin  rebuked  by  righteousness  itself  more  than  by 
all  righteous  precepts,  and  they  can  never  look 
upon  it  with  seeing  eyes,  without  knowing  them- 
selves called  to  its  most  earnest  and  devoted  pur- 
suit. The  life  of  Jesus  condemns  men  more 
sternly  than  his  lips  ever  did,  and  woos  them  to 
the  life  of  love  more  persuasively  than  his  uttered 
"Follow  me." 

One  of  the  laws  of  evolution  is  this.  Each 
evolutionary  process  is  preceded  by  an  act  or 
process  of  involution.  Nothing  can  be  drawn  out 
that  was  not  first  put  in.  This  is  true  of  every 
great  principle  and  every  great  life.  Put  little 
into  a  principle  and  you  get  little  out  of  it.  Put 
everything  in  and  you  can  get  everything  out. 
The  "two  commandments"  of  Jesus  represent  the 
broadest  possible  generalization  in  the  sphere  of 
ethics,  and  this  generalization  stands  incarnate  in 
his  person  and  conduct.  Everything  was  put  in 
and  was  there  from  the  start,  to  reveal  itself  in 
its  time.  Part  stands  disclosed  to-day;  the  rest 
is  to  follow.  The  relationship  of  Jesus,  therefore, 
to  the  perfect  code  which  we  have  been  consider- 
ing is  like  that  of  the  sun  to  practically  all  the 
light  and  warmth  our  earth  has  enjoyed  from 


300  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

the  moment  it  became  dependent  upon  that  orb. 
Out  of  himself  and  the  great  principles  of  right- 
eousness which  he  enunciated  all  helpful  legislation 
is  slowly  being  evolved  in  Christian  lands,  and 
the  process  will  continue  until  all  lands  are  Chris- 
tian and  all  human  laws  and  institutions  attain 
his  own  perfection. 

The  perfect  ethical  code  is,  therefore,  not  an 
achievement  of  yesterday  or  to-day  but  of  all  the 
days  till  the  time  of  its  predestined  completion. 
It  represents  the  age-long  travail  of  the  soul  of 
Jesus,  and  with  it  He  will  be  satisfied. 


XIX 

THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

The  thought  and  activity  of  each  age  of  the 
church  of  Christ  are  conditioned  or  governed  by 
some  leading  idea  or  ideas,  which  must  be  very 
clearly  grasped  by  the  church  historian  before 
he  can  hope  to  place  before  his  readers  a  really 
true  account  of  the  events  and  teachings  with 
which  he  has  to  deal.  This  statement  is  quite  as 
true  when  applied  to  the  apostolic  age  as  in  con- 
nection with  any  other  age  that  can  be  named. 
It  would  probably  be  quite  safe  to  put  the  case 
much  more  strongly  than  this,  for  the  leading 
minds  of  that  first  Christian  age  were  dominated 
by  certain  words  of  him  who  spoke  as  no  one  else 
ever  did,  to  an  extent  never  since  equaled.  It  is 
therefore,  the  clearest  possible  duty  of  the  inter- 
preter of  the  New  Testament  writings  to  give  his 
first  attention  to  this  very  matter. 

What,  then,  were  the  large  governing  ideas 
which  affected  Peter  and  John  and  Paul  and  all 
the  rest,  while  they  were  preaching  salvation  from 
sin  to  righteousness  to  the  unsaved,  and  to  the 
saved  the  cultivation  of  every  Christ-like  virtue? 

The  first  of  these  governing  ideas  was  the  ab- 
solute assurance  they  had  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth 

301 


302  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

was  the  Christ,  and  that  as  such  he  had  been 
given  by  God  the  Father  himself,  kingship  over 
our  whole  race.  They  never  thought  of  him  as 
the  great  aspirant  to  that  throne.  On  the  con- 
trary they  saw  him  firmly  and  immovably  seated 
upon  it.  They  knew  that  his  foes  were  many  and 
mighty.  But  this  made  no  difference.  Sitting 
there  upon  his  throne  he  was  simply  looking  for- 
ward in  his  conquering  might  to  the  time  when 
the  very  last  of  these  enemies  would  be  removed 
from  his  kingdom,  and  none  would  remain  but 
those  who  gladly  acknowledged  his  sway.  He 
was  king  first  of  all  by  divine  right,  but  this 
divine  right  was  so  inherent  in  his  very  character, 
that  he  would  finally,  and  of  necessity,  win  the 
suffrages  of  the  whole  race. 
"The  Lord  said  to  my  Master:  'Sit  on  my  right 

hand, 
Till  I  put  thy  enemies  as  a  footstool  under  thy 

feet.' 

So  let  the  whole  nation  of  Israel  know  beyond 
all  doubt,  that  God  has  made  him  both  Lord  and 
Christ — this  very  Jesus  whom  you  crucified." 
This  was  Peter's  word  the  first  time  he  ever  opened 
his  mouth  to  address  the  public  on  the  claims  of 
his  risen  master,  and  it  was  the  word  that  moved 
his  audience  so  remarkably.  "It  is  this  Jesus 
whom  God  has  exalted  to  his  right  hand,  to  be  a 
guide  and  a  Savior,  to  give  Israel  repentance  and 
forgiveness  of  sins."  In  these  words  and  others 
like  them,  the  fact  which  is  given  prominence  is 


THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  JESUS     303 

that  Jesus  is  a  spiritual  Savior,  but  it  is  not 
forgotten  that  he  is  exalted  to  God's  right  hand, 
and  that  men  must  submit  to  him.  Paul  stand- 
ing ini  the  court  of  Areopagus  at  Athens  preached 
the  need  of  repentance  in  view  of  our  Lord's 
Kingly  office  of  judge.  "He  has  fixed  a  day  on 
which  he  intends  to  'judge  the  world  with  jus- 
tice' by  a  man  whom  he  has  appointed — and  of 
this  he  has  given  all  men  a  pledge  by  raising 
that  man  from  the  dead."  And  Paul's  first  ex- 
tant letter  is  full  of  this  idea  as  it  stands  asso- 
ciated with  that  of  our  Lord's  second  coming.  So 
also  is  the  second.  Both  of  these  were  written  to 
the  Thessalonians.  And  when  four  years  later 
he  wrote  to  the  church  at  Corinth,  he  used  lan- 
guage of  the  most  definite  sort  on  this  point. 
"Then  will  come  the  end — when  he  surrenders  the 
kingdom  to  his  God  and  Father,  having  over- 
thrown all  other  rule  and  all  other  authority 
and  power.  For  he  must  reign  until  God  'has 
put  all  his  enemies  under  his  feet.'  The  last 
enemy  to  be  overthrown  is  death ;  for  God  has 
placed  all  things  under  Christ's  feet." 

The  writer  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews  said: 
"He  is  the  radiance  of  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
very  expression  of  his  being,  upholding  all  crea- 
tion by  the  power  of  his  word;  and,  when  he  had 
made  an  expiation  for  the  sins  of  men,  he  took 
his  seat  at  the  right  hand  of  God's  majesty  on 
high,  having  shown  himself  as  much  greater  than 
the  angels  as  the  name  that  he  has  inherited  sur- 


304  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

passes  theirs."     This  writer  also  heard  him  ad- 
dressed thus : 

"God  is  thy  throne  for  ever  and  ever; 
Thou,  Lord  in  the  beginning  didst  lay  the  foundation 

of  the  earth, 

And  the  heavens  are  the  work  of  thy  hands. 
They  shall  perish  but  thou  remainest; 
As  a  garment  they  shall  all  grow  old; 
As  a  mantle  thou  wilt  fold  them  up, 
And  as  a  garment  they  shall  be  changed, 
But  thou  art  the  same,  and  thy  years  shall  know  no 

end." 

Finally,  to  quote  no  more,  the  author  of  the 
Apocalypse  saw  him  gifted  with  all  power,  and 
bearing  on  his  robe,  and  on  his  thigh  the  written 
words — "Kings  of  Kings  and  Lord  of  Lords," 
and  followed  him  as  he  wrought  out  one  after 
another  his  world- wide  conquests. 

If  we  wish  td  discover  the  source  of  this  govern- 
ing idea,  we  can  easily  find  it  in  the  teachings  of 
our  Lord  himself.  "The  Father  Himself  does 
not  judge  any  man,  but  has  entrusted  the  work 
of  judging  entirely  to  his  Son,  so  that  all  men 
may  honor  the  Son,  just  as  they  honor  the  Father. 
And  because  he  is  the  Son  of  Man  he 
has  also  given  him  authority  to  act  as  judge.  Do 
not  wonder  at  this ;  for  the  time  is  coming  when 
all  that  are  in  their'  graves  will  hear  his  voice,  and 
will  come  out — those  who  have  done  good  rising 
to  life,  and  those  who  have  lived  evil  lives  rising 
for  condemnation."  John  was  responsible  for  this 


THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  JESUS     305 

report  of  Jesus's  words  and  Matthew  for  the  fol- 
lowing : 

"All  authority  in  heaven  and  on  earth  has  been 
given  to  me.  Therefore  go  and  make  disciples 
of  all  the  nations,  baptizing  them  into  the  Faith 
of  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
teaching  them  to  lay  to  heart  all  the  commands 
that  I  have  given  you;  and,  remember,  I  myself 
am  with  you  every  day)  until  the  close  of  the  age." 

In  direct  association  with  this  idea  of  Christ 
as  actual  king  and  judge  of  the  race  with  which 
he  had  allied  himself,  there  stood  in  the  minds  of 
the  apostles  and  first  believers  generally,  that  of 
his  very  early  coming  to  perform  a  stupendous 
work  of  deliverance  on  behalf  of  his  own.  This 
second  idea  was  never  very  long  absent  from  their 
thoughts.  Indeed  it  may  well  be  said  to  have 
been  present  there  always,  particularly  after  they 
became  the  victims  of  furious  persecution.  "Turn- 
ing to  God  from  your  idols  you  became  serv- 
ants of  the  true  and  living  God,  and  are  now 
awaiting  the  return  from  heaven  of  his  Son, 
whom  he  raised  from  the  dead — Jesus,  our 
deliverer  from  the  coming  wrath,"  is  one  of 
the  first  words  Paul  ever  wrote  to  a  church ; 
and  he  penned  it  as  early  as  the  year  52. 
Passing  over  all  else  on  the  same  subject,  which 
is  to  be  found  in  Paul's  letters  to  the  various 
churches,  we  may  fix  our  attention  on  two  writings 
which  were  produced  about  the  time  (68  or  a  little 
later)  when  he  sealed  his  testimony  with  his  blood. 


306  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

I  refer  to  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews  and  the 
Revelation  of  John. 

Says  the  first  writer  to  those  whom  he  addresses, 
"You  still  have  need  of  patient  endurance,  in  order 
that,  when  you  have  done  God's  will,  you  may 
obtain  the  fulfillment  of  his  promise.  'For  there 
is  indeed  but  a  very  little  while  ere  he  who  is 
coming  will  have  come,  without  delay.' '  On  the 
other  hand  the  "Revelation  of  Jesus  Christ"  was 
his  showing  forth  as  ruler  of  the  race  and  deter- 
miner of  men's  destinies.  He  will  be  speedily 
manifested  as  such,  declared  this  writer  "concern- 
ing what  must  shortly  take  place  .  .  .  for 
the  time  is  near,"  he  asserts.  A  part  of  his  gen- 
eral message  to  the  seven  churches  is — "He  is  com- 
ing among  the  clouds."  Those  whose  eyes  are 
open  can  see  that  the  clouds  now  gathering  such 
blackness  are  his,  and  that  he  is  enthroned  within 
them ;  and  the  time  will  come,  when  it  is  too  late  to 
be  benefited  by  the  sight,  in  which  "every  eye  shall 
see  him,  even  those  who  pierced  him ;  'and  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth  shall  wail  for  fear  of  him.' 
So  shall  it  be.  Amen." 

Carrying  this  thought  forward  into  the  in- 
dividual messages  to  these  churches,  the  writer's 
word  to  Ephesus  was, — "I  will  come  and  remove 
your  lamp  from  its  place,  unless  you  repent" ; 
the  word  to  Pergamos, — "Therefore,  repent,  or 
else  I  will  come  quickly  and  contend  with  such 
men  (Nikolaitans,  etc.)  with  words  that  will  cut 
like  a  sword";  the  word  of  Sardis, — "Unless  you 


THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  JESUS     307 

are  on  the  watch,  I  shall  come  like  a  thief,  and 
you  will  not  know  at  what  hour  I  am  coming 
to  you" ;  the  word  to  Philadelphia, — "I  will  come 
quickly.  Hold  to  what  you  have  received,  that 
no  one  may  take  your  crown" ;  and  to  the  church 
at  Laodicea, — •"  'All  whom  I  love  I  rebuke  and 
discipline.'  Therefore  be  in  earnest  and  repent. 
I  am  standing  at  the  door  and  knocking,  so  near 
am  I.  If  any  one  hears  my  voice  and  opens  the 
door,  I  will  go  in,  and  will  feast  with  him,  and  he 
shall  feast  with  me.  To  him  who  conquers — to 
him  I  will  give  the  right  to  sit  beside  me  on  my 
throne,  as  I,  when  I  conquered,  took  my  seat  be- 
side my  Father  on  his  throne." 

One  cannot  but  remark  that  here  we  find  Peter's 
idea  of  an  immediate  judgment  which  makes  its 
beginning  at  the  house  of  God.  And  as  this  book 
opens  so  it  closes.  The  conditions  of  entrance 
into  the  four-square  city  which  John  saw  coming 
down  from  God  out  of  heaven,  and  transforming 
all  earthly  states  and  surroundings,  are  set  forth, 
and  the  things  named  which  make  admission  to 
it  impossible.  But  the  one  thing  insisted  upon  and 
reiterated  is  that  the  time  for  the  fulfillment  of 
the  prophecies  is  at  hand.  "I  will  come  quickly," 
says  a  voice,  "I  bring  my  rewards  with  me,  to 
give  to  each  man  what  his  actions  deserve.  So 
near  am  I  that  the  wrong-doer  will  not  have 
time  to  turn  from  his  wrong-doing,  nor  the  filthy- 
minded  man  from  his  filthiness,  nor  the  righteous 
man  from  his  righteousness,  nor  the  holy  minded 


308  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

man   from  his  holiness,  before  I   arrive. 
Assuredly  I  will  come  quickly"  (Rev.  22:10-12), 
he    repeats;    and — "Amen,    come,    Lord    Jesus," 
is   the   ready   response  of  those  whom  he  is   ad- 
dressing. 

We  know  what  the  author  has  in  mind,  for  he 
is  writing  in  the  year  68  or  a  little  later.  He  is 
recalling  the  words  of  our  Lord  which  Matthew 
recorded.  He  knows  that  his  Lord  is  coming  in 
connection  with  the  destruction  of  the  old  de- 
filed Jerusalem,  to  establish  the  holy  city,  New 
Jerusalem,  and  to  carry  on  within  it  that  rule 
which  he  has  already  described.  His  ears  con- 
tinually hear  the  words — "Assuredly  I  will  come 
soon,"  and  his  heart  unceasingly  responds, — 
"Amen,  come  Lord  Jesus,"  come  and  put  thy 
hand  publicly  and  openly  to  thy  great  world  task, 
so  that  all  mankind  may  see  thee  and  bow  be- 
fore the  greatness  of  thy  majesty. 

Every  note  struck  by  the  disciple  in  this  book 
was  struck  (in  his  hearing?)  by  the  Master  him- 
self 36  or  37  years  before.  The  world  taken  by 
surprise  in  the  midst  of  its  follies  and  excesses; 
the  faithful  servant  abundantly  rewarded  and  the 
unfaithful  one  flogged  severely  and  allotted  his 
place  among  hypocrites ;  the  wise  virgins  with 
lamps  ready  and  oil  in  their  cans,  and  the  foolish 
ones  with  no  oil  can  at  all,  when  the  bridegroom 
came,  are  some  of  our  Lord's  pictures  of  the 
things  which  would  occur  when  he  came  again. 
And  as  to  the  time  of  that  coming,  he  fixed  it  most 


THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  JESUS     309 

definitely,  with  the  one  reservation,  that  about  the 
actual  day  and  hour,  no  one  had  at  the  time  he 
was  speaking1,  "any  knowledge ;  not  even  the  an- 
gels of  heaven,  nor  yet  the  Son  himself, — but 
only  the  Father."  But  he  constantly  taught  in 
the  most  positive  manner  that  it  would  take  place 
during  the  life-time  of  some  who  listened  to  his 
solemn  predictions  concerning  it. 

Speaking  to  the  twelve  as  he  sent  them  forth 
on  a  tour  of  preaching  and  healing,  he  told  them 
of  persecutions  they  met  with  only  after  his 
resurrection  and  ascension,  and  said, — "When 
they  persecute  you  in  one  town,  escape  to  the  next ; 
for,  I  tell  you,  you  will  not  have  come  to  the 
end  of  the  towns  of  Israel  before  the  Son  of  Man 
comes.'*  Later  when  our  Lord,  after  his  trans- 
figuration, foretold  his  death,  and  Peter  rebuked 
him  for  indulging  in  such  gloomy  forebodings,  he 
assured  Peter  and  the  rest  that  discipleship  to 
him  meant  parting  with!  much  and  suffering  much, 
and  then  went  on  to  say, — "The  Son  of  Man  is 
to  come  in  his  Father's  glory,  with  his  angels,  and 
then  he  'will  give  to  every  man  what  his  actions 
deserve.'  I  tell  you,  some  of  those  who  are  stand- 
ing here  will  not  know  death  till  they  have  seen 
the  Son  of  Man  coming  into  his  kingdom."  We 
remember  our  Lord's  words  of  blistering  denunci- 
ation against  the  leading  men  among  his  people. 
The  ever  recurring  refrain  of  them  was, — "Alas 
for  you,  teachers  of  the  Law  and  Pharisees,  hypo- 
crites that  you  are!"  until  at  length  he  utters  a 


310  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

prediction  in  these  words, — "You  serpents  and 
brood  of  vipers !  How  can  you  escape  being  sen- 
tenced to  the  pit?  That  is  why  I  send  you 
prophets,  wise  men,  and  teachers  of  the  law,  some 
of  whom  you  will  crucify  and  kill,  and  some  of 
whom  you  will  scourge  in  your  synagogues  and 
persecute  from  town  to  town ;  in  order  that  upon 
your  heads  may  fall  every  drop  of  innocent 
'blood  spilt  on  earth/  from  the  blood  of  innocent 
Abel  down  to  that  of  Zechariah,  Barachiah's  son, 
whom  you  murdered  between  the  temple  and  the 
altar.  All  this,  I  tell  you,  will  come  home  to  the 
present  generation."  After  listening  to  these  aw- 
ful predictions  of  our  Lord  "his  disciples  came  up 
to  him  and  privately  said, — 'Tell  us  when  this  will 
be,  and  what  will  be  the  sign  of  your  coming  and 
of  the  close  of  the  age.'  '  And  sitting  there  upon 
the  Mount  of  Olives  Jesus  gave  them  that  very 
complete  reply,  which  covers  the  whole  of  the 
24th  and  25th  of  Matthew,  besides  a  part  of  Mark 
13th  and  Luke  21st.  Summarized,  the  reply  was 
this :  Before  this  coming  of  mine  there  will  be 
pretended  Christs ;  wars  and  warlike  rumors ;  fam- 
ines, pestilences,  earthquakes;  bitter  persecution 
of  you,  my  disciples  ;  backslidings  from  me,  and  the 
preaching  of  my  gospel  throughout  the  world  as 
a  testimony  to  all  nations.  "Then  will  come  the 
end  of  this  age,  with  the  foul  desecration  mentioned 
by  the  prophet  Daniel,  standing  in  the  Holy 
Place  (the  reader  must  consider  what  this  means). 
.  .  .  Wherever  a  dead  body  lies,  'there  will 


THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  JESUS     311 

the  vultures  flock.'  Immediately  after  the  dis- 
tress of  those  days,  'the  sun  will  be  darkened, 
the  moon  will  not  give  her  light,  the  stars  will  fall 
from  the  heavens,  and  the  forces  of  the  heavens 
will  be  convulsed.'  Then  will  appear  the  sign  of 
the  Son  of  Man  in  the  heavens ;  and  all  the  peoples 
of  the  earth  will  mourn,  when  they  see  the  Son 
of  Man  coming  on  the  clouds  of  heaven,  with 
power  and  great  glory ;  and  he  will  send  his  an- 
gels, with  a  great  trumpet,  and  they  will  gather 
his  people  round  him  from  the  four  winds,  from 
one  end  of  heaven  to  the  other." 

The  disciples  are  listening  intently,  and  now 
they  break  in  upon  him  with  the  word, — "But 
when,  Master?  May  we  not  know  the  time?" 
And  in  the  same  even  tones  of  assured  knowledge 
and  full  authority  he  continued, — "Learn  the  les- 
son taught  by  the  fig  tree.  As  soon  as  its 
branches  are  full  of  sap,  and  it  is  bursting  into 
leaf,  you  know  that  summer  is  near.  And  so 
may  you,  as  soon  as  you  see  all  these  things, 
know  that  he  is  at  your  doors.  I  tell  you,  even 
the  present  generation  will  not  pass  away,  till  all 
these  things  have  taken  place.  The  heavens  and 
the  earth  will  pass  away,  but  my  words  shall  never 
pass  away." 

Nothing  is  clearer  than  the  fact  that  the  first 
Christians  believed  that  our  Lord's  second  coming, 
with  all  the  power  and  glory  and  dread  which  he 
himself  associated  with  it,  would  take  place  be- 
fore that  generation  passed  away,  which  listened 


312  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

to  his)  teachings  and  saw  his  mighty  deeds  and  his 
mightier  life. 

When  these  disciples  asked  the  Lord  about  the 
sign  and  time  of  his  coming  again,  they  coupled 
with  that  coming  what  they  called  "the  close  of 
the  age."  What  did  they  mean  by  the  close  of 
the  age?  Unfortunately  for  English  speaking 
peoples,  the  King  James  translators  called  this 
close  of  the  age  "the  end  of  the  world,"  and  thus 
suggested  a  theme  which  was  not  in  the  minds  of 
these  disciples  at  all.  What  they  wanted  Jesus 
to  tell  them  was,  when  the  order  of  things  then 
existing  would  give  place  to  the  new  and  better 
institutions  which  he  had  come  to  establish. 
They  had  very  incomplete,  not  to  say  false  ideas 
as  to  what  the  changes  were  to  be,  towards  which 
under  our  Lord's  tuition  they  had  learned  to  look. 
But  they  were  sure  that  he  was  to  bring  the  old 
dying  age  to  an  end,  and  introduce  an  age  which 
would  be  his  own,  and  great  and  glorious  like 
himself. 

The  age  that  was  going  out  was  to  them  the 
age  of  the  Jew,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  Gen- 
tile on  the  other.  It  was,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
age  of  Mosaism  with  its  doctrine  of  the  divine 
unity,  its  bloody  sacrifices  and  endless  rites  and 
ceremonies,  and  its  sad  lack  of  real  righteous- 
ness ;  and  on  the  other,  of  heathen  idolatries,  pol- 
lutions and  tyrannies.  To  the  disciples  of  Jesus 
this  age  was  specially  represented  by  Jewish 
hostility  to  their  Master  and  his  gospel  of  salva- 


THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  JESUS     313 

tion,  through  the  attainment  of  a  righteousness, 
which  to  these  Jews  seemed)  so  impossible  and  foolj 
ish  that  they  rewarded  both  the  thing  itself  and 
Him  who  insisted  upon  it  as  their  only  hope,  with 
the  most  implacable  hatred.  These  disciples  be- 
lieved in  Jesus  most  confidently,  but  they  wanted 
more  light  as  to  his  plans.  When  would  he  break 
down  this  Jewish  opposition,  attain  the  place  of 
king,  and  successfully  cope  with  every  resistance 
and  difficulty  besides  ?  Our  Lord's  answer  was  that 
he  would  do  it  at  his  "coming,"  and  that  this  com- 
ing of  his  would  take  place  within  the  life-time 
of  the  generation  to  which  they  themselves  be- 
longed. 

That  the  apostolic  church  understood  his  words 
in  this  way  is  abundantly  clear.  Let  us  cite  a  few 
passages  in  evidence,  in  the  order  in  which  they 
were  written. 

"God  deems  it  just  to  inflict  suffering  on  those 
who  are  now  inflicting  suffering  upon  you,  and 
to  give  relief  to  you  who  are  suffering,  as  well  as 
to  us,  at  the  appearing  of  the  Lord  Jesus  from 
heaven  with  his  mighty  angels,  'in  flaming  fire.'  " 
(2  Thess.  1:6,  7,  A.  D.  53.) 

"There  is  no  gift  in  which  you  are  deficient  while 
waiting  for  the  appearing  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  God  himself  will  strengthen  you  to 
the  end,  so  that  at  the  day  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  you  may  be  found  blameless."  (1  Cor.  1 : 
7,  8,  A.  D.  57.) 

"These   things   happened  to   them  by   way   of 


314  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

warning  and  were  recorded  as  a  caution  to  us,  in 
whose  days  the  ends  of  the  ages  have  come." 
(1  Cor.  10:11,  A.  D.  57.) 

"Our  salvation  is  nearer  now  than  when  we 
accepted  the  faith.  The  night  is  almost  gone; 
but  the  day  is  near."  (Rom.  13:11,  A.  D.  58.) 

It  should  be  noted  that  "Salvation"  in  this  last 
passage  must  of  necessity  mean  a  temporal  deliver- 
ance of  some  sort.  For  those  who  were  looking 
for  it  were  already  enjoying  salvation  in  the 
spiritual  sense.  Between  the  years  65  and  68 
Peter  wrote  "to  the  people  of  God  who  are  liv- 
ing abroad,  dispersed  throughout  Pontus,  Galatia, 
Cappadocia,  Roman  Asia,  and  Bithynia  .  .  . 
who,  through  faith,  are  being  guarded  by  the 
power  of  God,  awaiting  a  salvation  that  is  ready 
to  be  revealed  in  the  last  days.  At  the  thought 
of  this,"  he  declares,  "you  are  full  of  exultation. 
...  .  .  It  was  this  salvation  that  the  prophets, 
who  spoke  long  ago  of  the  blessing  intended  for 
you,  sought,  and  strove  to  comprehend;  as  they 
strove  to  discern  what  that  time  could  be,  to  which 
the  spirit  of  Christ  within  them  was  pointing,  when 
foretelling  the  sufferings  that  would  befall  Christ, 
and  the  glories  that  would  follow."  So  Peter 
made  the  same  distinctions  between  salvations  that 
Paul  did.  There  was  the  salvation  of  the 
soul  which  was  received  as  the  reward  of 
faith,  and  there  was  "a  salvation  that  was 
ready  to  be  revealed  in  the  last  days."  How 
vividly  Paul  makes  this  great  fact  stand  out  in 


THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  JESUS     315 

his  latest  word  on  the  second  coming,  as  such — 

"The  state  of  which  we  are  citizens  is  in 
Heaven;  and  it  is  from  heaven  that  we  are 
eagerly  looking  for  a  Savior,  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  .  .  .  The  Lord  is  near."  (Phil. 
3:20;  4:5,  A.  D.  61.) 

How  beautifully,  too,  some  words  of  James 
lend  their  emphasis  here!  "Be  patient  then, 
brothers,  till  the  coming  of  the  Lord 
for  the  Lord's  coming  is  near.  .  .  .  The 
Judge  is  already  standing  at  the  door."  (Jas. 
5:7,  8,  9.) 

The  writer  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews,  too, 
has  a  most  helpful  word,  which  shows  us,  on  the 
one  hand,  that  our  Lord's  death  took  place  at 
"the  close  of  the  age,"  as  the  apostolic  church 
understood  the  phrase,  and  on  the  other,  that  his 
second  coming  would  be  for  the  deliverance  of 
those  who  were  then  eagerly  looking  for  him. 
"But  now,  once  for  all,  at  the  close  of  the  age, 
he  has  appeared,  in  order  to  abolish  sin  by  the 
sacrifice  of  himself  .  .  .  and  the  second  time 
he  will  appear — but  without  any  burden  of  sin — 
to  those  who  are  waiting  for  him,  to  bring  salva- 
tion." (Heb,  9:26,  28.) 

Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  the  fact  that  all 
the  thought  and  work  of  the  apostolic  church  was 
saturated  with  the  idea  that  its  Lord  was  speed- 
ily to  be  revealed  in  awful  majesty,  to  free  them 
from  their  foes  and  introduce  a  better  day.  And 
here  again  let  us  remind  ourselves  that  this  expec- 


316  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

tation  was  based  upon  our  Lord's  own  words: 
"As  soon,  however,  as  you  see  Jerusalem  sur- 
rounded by  armed  camps,  then  you  may  know  that 
the  hour  of  her  desecration  is  at  hand.  Then 
those  of  you  who  are  in  Judea  must  take  refuge 
in  the  mountains,  those  who  are  in  Jerusalem  must 
leave  at  once,  and  those  who  are  in  the  country 
places  must  not  go  into  it.  For  these  are  to  be 
the  days  of  Vengeance,  when  all  that  scripture 
says  will  be  fulfilled.  Alas  for  the  women  that  are 
with  child,  and  for  those  that  are  nursing  infants 
in  those  days!  For  there  will  be  great  suffering 
in  the  land,  and  anger  against  this  people.  They 
will  fall  by  the  edge  of  the  sword,  and  will  be 
taken  prisoners  to  every  land,  and  'Jerusalem  will 
be  under  the  heel  of  the  Gentiles,'  until  their  day 
is  over,  as  it  shall  be.  There  will  be  signs,  too, 
in  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars,  and  on  earth 
despair  among  the  nations,  in  their  dismay  at  the 
roaring  of  the  sea  and  the  surge.  Men's  hearts 
will  fail  them  through  dread  of  what  is  coming 
on  the  world;  for  'the  forces  of  the  heavens  will 
be  convulsed.'  Then  will  be  seen  the  'Son  of  man 
coming  in  a  cloud'  with  power  and  great  glory. 
And  when  these  things  begin  to  occur,  look  up- 
wards and  lift  your  heads,  for  your  deliverance 
will  be  at  hand.  ...  I  tell  you  that  even  the 
present  generation  will  not  pass  away  till  all  has 
taken  place.  The  heavens  and  the  earth  will  pass 
away,  but  my  words  will  never  pass  away." 
(Luke  81:  20-28,  32,  33.) 


THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  JESUS     317 

Here,  then,  in  one  paragraph  of  our  Lord's 
teaching1,  is  point  after  point  of  that  which  his 
disciples  taught  after  him. 

But  we  have  not  yet  exhausted  the  language  in 
which  these  apostolic  Christians  expressed  them- 
selves on  the  subject  which  was  so  dear  to  them 
in  all  their  life  of  doing  and  suffering.  On  the 
day  of  Pentecost  Peter  spoke  to  his  vast  audience 
of  "the  last  days"  and  "the  day  of  the  Lord- 
that  great  and  awful  day,"  and  in  his  second 
letter  he  asserts,  as  taught  long  before  by  the 
Master  himself,  "the  day  of  the  Lord  will  come 
like  a  thief."  "You  see  the  day  drawing  near," 
— the  most  awful  and;  yet  most  blessed  of  all  these 
last  days,  was  a  word  "to  the  Hebrews."  "You 
have  heaped  up  wealth  in  these  last  days,  you 
will  find  that  you  have  heaped  up  fire,"  wrote 
James  warningly  to  the  silver-lovers  of  Jerusalem. 
"God  has  in  these  latter  days  spoken  to  us  through 
his  Son.  .  .  .  Beware  of  refusing  to  hear  him 
who  is  speaking,"  is  another  New  Testament 
warning. 

The  enthroned  Christ  reigning,  and  to  reign 
till  all  acknowledge  his  sway ;  a  coming  of  his, 
glorious  alike  in  its  terrors  and  its  blessings, 
to  take  place  very  soon;  their  lives  passing  in 
connection  with  the  close  of  an  age,  which  would 
end  so  early,  that  their  days  as  these  dawned  and 
faded,  were  to  be  thought  of  only  as  the  last 
days, — such  were  the  governing  ideas,  the  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  atmosphere  in  which  these 


318  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

first  Christians  lived  their  hours  and  did  their 
striving. 

But  our  presentation  of  their  mental  and  spirit- 
ual situation  is  not  yet  quite  complete.  They 
associated  the  resurrection  of  the  dead — the  right- 
eous dead  at  least,  with  the  coming  of  their  Lord 
at  the  very  close  of  the  age.  This  is  as  plain 
as  any  fact  in  the  New  Testament.  It  comes  out 
most  distinctly  in  Paul's  first  letter,  that  to  the 
Thessalonians,  written,  let  us  repeat,  about  the 
year  52.  And  Paul  never  in  the  slightest  degree 
receded  from  his  first  position,  but  fortified  it 
and  kept  disclosing  the  larger  facts  connected  with 
it.  It  was  probably  this  common  belief  that  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead  would  occur  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Lord's  second  coming  which,  through 
some  process  of  reasoning  not  easy  to  guess  now, 
led  such  men  as  Hymenaeus  and  Philetus  to  con- 
clude and  teach  that  it  had  already  taken  place, 
and  so  to  bring  upon  themselves  that  rebuke  of 
Paul  which  we  find  in  his  second  letter  to  Timothy. 

But  what  warrant,  if!  any,  had  the  apostle  Paul 
for  teaching  as  he  did  on  this  subject?  None  at 
all?  Was  he  quite  mistaken?  Or  had  he  rightly 
interpreted  his  Lord  at  this  point  also? 

Jesus  said  to  Martha, — "Your  brother  shall 
rise  to  life."  "I  know  that  he  will,"  replied 
Martha,  "in  the  resurrection  at  the  last  day." 
Was  this  the  subject  on  which  Jesus  had  talked 
with  Mary  when  "Martha  herself  was  distracted 
with  the  many  preparations  she  was  making?" 


THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  JESUS     319 

And  did  Martha  catch  enough  of  the  Lord's  teach- 
ing in  spite  of  her  worries  to  enable  her  to  give 
this  intelligent  answer  to  his  word  about  Lazarus's 
rising?  However  that  may  have  been,  Jesus  had 
taught  at  least  a  little  publicly  on  the  great 
theme.  "It  is  the  will  of  my  Father  that  every 
one  who  sees  the  Son,  and  believes  in  him,  should 
have  immortal  life;  and  I  myself  will  raise  him 
up  at  the  last  day.  .  .  .  No  one  can  come  to 
me  unless  the  Father  who  sent  me  draws  him  to 
me ;  and  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day.  .  .  . 
He  who  takes  my  flesh  for  his  food,  and  drinks 
my  blood,  has  immortal  life ;  and  I  will  raise  him 
up  at  the  last  day."  (John  6:40,  44,  54.) 

Was  Paul  wrong  in  his  understanding  of  this 
teaching  of  our  Lord?  Was  "the  last  day," 
after  all,  not  at  the  close  of  the  Mosaic  age,  but 
a  day  to  be  waited  for  till  the  close  of  this  Chris- 
tian era?  There  is  certainly  a  lively  satisfaction 
for  a  certain  class  of  minds  in  being  able  to  point 
out  the  mistakes  of  great  men,  and  the  finer  the 
inspiration  of  the  writers  and  teachers  criticised, 
the  keener  the  enjoyment  of  their  overconfident 
reviewers.  It  may,  however,  be  as  well  for  us 
not  to  pronounce  Paul  and  the  apostolic  church 
generally,  in  error  on  these  points,  till  we  have 
heard  from  them  further. 

Whether,  however,  they  were  mistaken  or  not, 
their  lives  were  certainly  lived  in  the  atmosphere 
of  these  great  expectations.  Their  Lord  reigned 
and  was  coming  to  deliver  and  gloriously  uplift 


320  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

his  people.  Then  those  of  their  number  who  had 
fallen  under  the  power  of  death,  and  those  who 
were  yet  to  fall  under  its  power  before  the  day 
arrived,  would  all  be  raised  from  the  dead;  while 
those  who  would  be  alive  when  he  came,  would 
share  in  the  deliverance,  and  experience  a  change 
corresponding  to  that  of  the  resurrection  itself. 
So  lively  were  these  beliefs  and  hopes  that  in 
Thessalonica  and  Corinth  at  least  they  even 
threatened  industry  and  interfered  with  the  nor- 
mal life  of  the  family — a  fact  which  can  be  veri- 
fied by  even  a  hasty  glance  at  2nd  Thess.  3:7-16 
and  1  Cor.  7:29-35. 

This  chapter  may  serve  as  a  brief  introduction 
to  a  large  subject.  Any  one  wishing  some  ade- 
quate acquaintance  with  the  great  governing  ideas 
of  the  apostolic  church  and  the  ends  towards  which 
all  its  preaching  and  living  and  striving  and  suf- 
fering were  continually  directed  must  either  pre- 
pare or  peruse  a  word  on  these  three  themes — 
Jesus  as  Deliverer  from  Death,  Jesus  and  Na- 
tional Destiny  and  Jesus  as  Complete  Savior. 
The  three  chapters  which  follow  this  will,  there- 
fore, be  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  these  phases  of 
New  Testament  teaching. 


XX 

JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  FROM  DEATH 

The  resurrection,  considered  by;  itself,  is  a  post 
mortem  deliverance  of  the  human  body  from  the 
power  of  disease  and  death.  At  least  it  is  so 
presented  in  the  Christian  scriptures.  Accord- 
ingly we  have  in  Daniel  the  words :  "And  many  of 
them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the  earth  shall 
awake,  some  to  everlasting  life,  and  some  to  shame 
and  everlasting  contempt"  (Chapter  12:2)  ;  and  in 
Matthew — 

"The  tombs  opened,  and  the  bodies  of  many  of 
God' 8,  people  who  had  fallen  asleep  rose,  and  leav- 
ing their  tombs,  went,  after  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus,  into  the  Holy  City,  and  appeared  to  many 
people."  (Chapter  27:52,  53.)  And  the  resur- 
rection of  our  Lord  himself  was  regarded  by  both 
Peter  and  Paul,  as  all  the  more  a  triumph  over 
the  last  enemy,  because  his  body  did  not  even 
undergo  corruption  before  its  deliverance  was  ef- 
fected. (Acts  2 :31 ;  13,  36.) 

But  the  New  Testament  writers  did  not  long 
consider  the  resurrection  as  an  event  which  could 
be  thought  of  by  itself.  On  the  contrary  they 
very  early  came  to  see  that  it  stood  in  most  inti- 
mate association  with  things  which  were  even 
321 


322  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

greater  than  it  was.  The  body  of  their  Master 
had  escaped  corruption,  but  if  that  had  been  all, 
what  would  have  been  the  advantage?  For  flesh 
and  blood,  as  they  knew  them,  and  as  we  know 
them,  there  is  no  escape  from  corruption  that  can 
be  considered  permanent.  To  rescue  the  body 
from  death  is  only  to  see  it  fall  under  the  power 
of  death  again,  unless  you  can  have  its  flesh  and 
blood  changed  into  something  superior.  So  they 
came  to  see  that,  not  the  resurrection  of  the  body, 
but  its  transmutation  from  the  perishable  to  the 
imperishable,  from  the  disfigured  to  the  beautiful, 
from  the  frail  to  the  strong — in  a  word  from  an 
animal  body  to  a  spiritual  body,  was  the  great 
event  which  had  taken  place  in  the  case  of  their 
Master,  and  that  a  like  change  was  the  thing 
which  they  were  to  anticipate  for  themselves. 
And,  as  we  know,  they  learned  to  look  forward  to 
it  with  eager  longing  and  expectancy. 

"This  I  say,  Brothers — Flesh  and  blood  can 
have  no  share  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  nor  can  the 
perishable  share  the  imperishable.  Listen,  I  will 
tell  you  God's  secret  purpose.  We  shall  not  all 
have  passed  to  our  rest,  but  we  shall  all  undergo 
a  change — in  a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  at  the  last  trumpet  call ;  for  the  trumpet  will 
sound,  and  the  dead  will  rise  immortal  and  we, 
also,  shall  undergo  a  change.  For  this  perishable 
body  of  ours  must  put  on  an  imperishable 
form,  and  this  dying  body  a  deathless  form." 
("Undergo  a  change"  is  from  the  tentative 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  323 

edition  and  is   most  expressive.)      1   Cor.  50-53. 

"And  we,  also,  shall  undergo  a  change,"  became 
a  favorite  text  with  Paul,  and  he  made  it,  through 
the  Holy  Spirit's  enlightenment,  a  subject  of  much 
fruitful  thought.  "And  we,  also,  shall  undergo  a 
change" — we  who  are  still  living  in  the  flesh  when 
the  Lord  comes  again — and  we  shall  not  need  a 
resurrection  from  the  dead:  the  change  will  take 
its  place  so  far  as  we  are  concerned — such  was  the 
burden  of  the  apostle's  musing. 

Now  if  we  allow  ourselves  to  ponder  for  a  mo- 
ment, we  shall  see  what  large  possibilities  stand 
connected  with  this  idea.  All  we  have  to  do  is 
to  hold  in  our  minds  the  fact  that  Paul  and  the 
Church  generally,  whether  right  or  wrong,  be- 
lieved that  our  Lord  was  coming  in  judgment, 
for  the  destruction  of  his  foes  and  the  deliver- 
ance of  his  own,  while  some  of  themselves  were 
still  living;  and  that  the  resurrection  of  the  dead 
would  take  place  and  this  change  be  introduced 
in  connection  with  that  coming;  to  see  how  far 
his  reflection  might  bear  him  along.  The  race 
was  to  live  on,  the  generations  were  to  follow 
each  other  as  before,  and  a  change  was  to  be 
effected  in  the  living,  which  would  make  them 
possessors  of  spiritual  bodies,  like  those  which 
would  be  bestowed  upon  the  dead,  in  connection 
with  their  resurrection  at  the  coming  of  the  Judge. 
How  far  would  this  change  be  carried  during  the 
progress  of  the  coming  ages?  Would  it  go  so 
far  that  at  length  no  believer's  body  would  see 


324  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

corruption  any  more  than  that  of  the  Master 
did?  Might  it  not  even  be  carried  to  the  point 
of  saving  men  from  disease  and  death  altogether? 

Paul  seems  to  have  gone  to  this  utmost  length 
in  his  study  of  the  matter,  or,  as  we  would  per- 
haps better  say,  in  his  enlightenment  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  relation  to  the  subject.  Fortunately 
we  know  the  order  in  which  his  books  or  letters 
were  written,  and  can  follow  the  current  of  his 
thinking.  And  this  we  shall  now  proceed  to  do. 

About  sixteen  years  after  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
had  revealed  himself  to  Saul  of  Tarsus,  the 
Jewish  arch-persecutor  of  his  followers,  as  the 
risen  and  glorified  Messiah ;  and  about  four  years 
subsequent  to  the  definite  entrance  of  the  new 
apostle  upon  his  great  life-work,  as  a  missionary 
to  other  peoples  besides  his  own ;  Paul  wrote  the 
earliest  of  those  letters  of  his  which  have  come 
down  to  us — the  first  to  the  Thessalonians.  One 
of  the  things  which  this  letter  most  clearly  re- 
veals is,  that  these  Christian  converts  of  a  year 
or  less  needed  further  instruction  touching  the 
resurrection  than  they  had  received,  and  that 
Paul  recognized  the  fact.  It  would  seem  that 
one  or  more  of  their  number  had  already  died, 
and  that  they  were  troubled  by  the  fear  that  these 
and  others  who  might  yet  fall  under  the  power  of 
disease  and  death,  before  that  glorious  coming 
of  the  Master,  in  which  their  evangelizer  had 
taught  them  to  believe,  would  be  shut  off  from 
every  possibility  of  sharing  in  the  great  deliver- 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  325 

ance  which  he  was  to  effect  for  his  own  when  he 
came.  Paul's  answer  to  this  fear  of  theirs  was 
a  very  graphic  description  of  the  events  which 
would  attend  the  coming1. 

"We  do  not  wish  you  to  remain  in  ignorance, 
Brothers,  with  regard  to  those  who  have  passed 
to  their  rest,  that  your  grief  may  not  bd  like  that 
of  others  who  have  no  hope.  For  as  we  believe 
that  Jesus  died  and  rose  again,  so  also  we  be- 
lieve that  God  will  bring,  with  Jesus,  those  who 
through  him  have  passed  to  their  rest.  This  we 
tell  you  on  the  authority  of  the  Lord — that  those 
of  us  who  are  still  living  at  the  coming  of  the 
Lord  will  not  anticipate  those  who  have  passed 
to  their  rest.  For,  with  a  loud  summons,  with 
the  shout  of  an  arch-angel,  and  with  the  trumpet 
call  of  God,  the  Lord  himself  will  come  down  from 
Heaven.  Then,  those  who  died  in  union  with 
Christ  shall  rise  first ;  and  afterwards  we  who  are 
still  living  shall  be  caught  up  in  the  clouds,  with 
them,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air;  and  so  we 
shall  be  forever  with  the  Lord.  .  .  .  For 
God  destined  us  not  for  wrath  but  to  win  salva- 
tion through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  who  died 
for  us  that,  whether  we  are  still  watching  or  have 
fallen  asleep,  we  may  live  with  him."  (I  Thess. 
4:13-17;  5:9.) 

His  teaching  here  was  certainly  that  the 
resurrection  of  believers  would  be  the  first  earthly 
response  to  a  glorious  coming  of  Christ,  which 
some  of  these  Thessalonians  would  in  all  prob- 


A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

ability  witness  before  many  years  had  passed. 
The  precise  time  of  the  events  no  one  could  tell, 
but  that  made  them  none  the  less  certain.  The 
exact  hour  of  birth-pangs  or  of  the  coming  of  a 
burglar  cannot  be  predicted,  he  went  on  to  argue, 
but  birth-pangs  and  burglaries  occur,  neverthe- 
less, and  men  know  that  they  must  not  live  in 
utter  forgetfulness  of  them.  Nor  could  any  one 
of  that  time  afford  to  ignore  these  stupendous 
events,  for  they  would  not  be  long  delayed. 

It  will  probably  be  best  for  us  to  defer  the 
general  discussion  of  the  resurrection,  in  its  re- 
lation to  the  coming  of  our  Lord  till  we  have 
taken  up  in  their  historic  order  all  Paul's  words 
upon  it.  But  before  going  any  further,  we  must 
note  his  assertion  here,  that  after  those  who  died 
in  Christ  will  arise,  "we  who  are  still  living  shall 
be  caught  up  into  the  clouds  with  them  to  meet 
the  Lord  in  the  air;  and  so  we  shall  be  forever 
with  the  Lord." 

In  Revelation  we  read  of  the  two  Christian 
witnesses  who  were  persecuted  and  slain  that 
"after  three  days  and  a  half  the  lifegiving  breath 
of  God  entered  into  these  men,  and  they  stood 
up  upon  their  feet  and  a  great  terror  took  posses- 
sion of  those  who  were  watching  them.  The  two 
men  heard  a  loud  voice  from  heaven  which  said 
to  them — 'Come  up  here,'  and  they  went  up  to 
heaven  in  a  cloud  while  their  enemies  watched 
them."  (Rev.  11:11.) 

Here  was  an  escape  of  God's  people  from  their 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  327 

persecutors,  and  reading  on  we  find  that  it  was 
succeeded  by  awful  judgments  upon  these  per- 
secutors themselves,  and  these  judgments  again 
by  the  paean  of  triumph — 

"The  kingdom  of  the  world  has  become  the 
kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ,  and  he 
will  reign  for  ever  and  ever"  (Rev.  11 :15)  ;  and — 

"We  thank  thee,  O  Lord  our  God,  the  Almighty 
who  art  and  who  wast,  that  thou  hast  assumed  thy 
great  power  and  reigned.  The  nations  were  en- 
raged and  thy  wrath  fell  upon  them;  the  time 
came  for  the  dead  to  be  judged,  and  for  thee  to 
give  the  reward  to  thy  servants  the  prophets, 
and  to  the  people  of  Christ  and  to  those  who 
reverence  thy  name — the  high  and  the  low  alike 
— and  to  destroy  those  that  are  destroying  the 
earth."  (Rev.  11:17,  18.) 

Again  we  have  the  vision  of  "the  Dragon 
standing  in  front  of  the  woman  who  is  about  to 
give  birth  to  the  child,  so  that  he  may  devour  it 
as  soon  as  it  is  born.  The  woman  gave  birth  to 
a  son,  a  male  child,  who  is  destined  to  rule  all  the 
nations  with  an  iron  rod;  and  her  child  was  at 
once  caught  up  to  God  upon  his  throne;  while 
the  woman  fled  into  the  wilderness  where  there  is 
a  place  prepared  for  her  by  God,  to  be  tended 
there  for  twelve  hundred  and  sixty  days."  (Rev. 
12:4-6.) 

Being  caught  up  for  safety  is  the  idea  com- 
mon to,  all  these  passages,  and  in  the  last  one  the 
wilderness  is  linked  with  the  divine  throne  as  a 


328  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

place  of  refuge.  They  all  refer  to  the  same 
event.  The  woman  is  the  apostolic  church.  So, 
too,  are  the  two  witnesses.  Or,  at  the  very  least, 
they  must  be  taken  as  representing  that  church 
in  its  Judaic  section.  In  the  woman's  escape  to 
the  wilderness  we  read  the  story  of  the  Church's 
escape  from  Jerusalem  before  that  doomed  city 
went  down  in  fire  and  blood.  Its  escape  was  so 
complete  that  it  might  well  be  figured  forth  by 
the  bringing  back  to  life  and  bearing  up  to 
heaven  in  a  cloud,  of  two  witnesses  for  Christ, 
who  represented  the  whole  people  as  in  Zechariah's 
vision  did  "the  two  sons  of  oil  that  stand  by  the 
Lord  of  the  whole  earth."  In  the  account  of 
these  two  witnesses,  too,  we  have  both  of  the 
leading  ideas  of  the  word  of  Paul  which  we  have 
been  considering — the  rising  to  life  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  being  caught  up  in  the  clouds  on 
the  other.  Living  believers  borne  into  safety 
(along  with  those  who  have  been  raised  from  the 
dead)  and  afterwards  restored  to  their  proper 
activities  here,  was  the  idea  Paul  had  in  his  mind 
when  he  wrote  his  word  about  their  being  "caught 
up  in  the  clouds  ...  to  meet  the  Lord  in 
the  air,"  as  he  descended  in  judgment.  This  is 
the  only  interpretation  which  will  harmonize  with 
Paul's  more  fully  developed  teachings  on  the 
general  subject,  as  we  shall  see.  Nor  is  his  rea- 
son for  using  such  apocalyptic  terms  hard  to 
guess.  The  persecutor  was  near  and  threaten- 
ing. 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  329 

The  resurrection  of  the  dead  and  deliverance 
and  refuge  for  the  living  believer,  are  the  two 
ideas,  then,  with  which  Paul  first  meets  us.  His 
next  word  on  the  subject  is  found  in  the  fifteenth 
chapter  of  first  Corinthians — 

"We  shall  not  all  have  passed  to  our  rest,  but 
we  shall  all  undergo  a  change — in  a  moment,  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  at  the  last  trumpet- 
call  ;  for  the  trumpet  will  sound,  and  the  dead  will 
rise  immortal,  and  we  also  shall  undergo  a  change." 
(I  Cor.  15:51,  52.) 

We  have  already  noted  the  fact  that  the  apostle 
here  brings  forward  in  the  most  confident  way, 
the  assertion  that  those  believers  who  would  them- 
selves be  alive  in  the  flesh  at  the  time  their 
brethren  who  had  gone  to  their  rest  would 
be  raised  from  the  dead,  would  find  no 
resurrection  awaiting  them,  but  would  become 
the  subjects  of  "a  change,"  such  as  would  make 
them  possessors  of  imperishable  bodies  like  those 
of  their  resurrected  brethren.  And  to  pave  the 
way  for  this  new  idea,  he  entered  into  quite  an 
elaborate  discussion  of  the  resurrection  itself. 
In  doing  so,  he  declared  that  the  resurrection 
would  be  no  mere  resuscitation — that  in  point  of 
fact  the  old  body  of  flesh  and  blood  would  not 
rise  at  all. 

"Some  one,  however,  may  ask,  'How  do  the  dead 
rise?'  and  'in  what  body  will  they  come?'  You 
foolish  man,  the  seed  you  yourself  sow  does  not 
come  to  life  unless  it  dies!  And  when  you  sow, 


330  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

you  sow  not  the  body  that  will  be,  but  a  mere 
grain — perhaps  of  wheat  or  something  else. 
God  gives  it  the  body  that  he  pleases — to  each 
seed  its  special  body.  .  .  ." 

Thus  Paul  suggested  that  it  was  the  living 
germ  that  mattered  most.  For  the  vegetable 
form  which  results  from  the  sowing  of  a  seed  is 
derived  to  only  a  slight  extent  from  the  seed  it- 
self. The  form  which  we  are  to  have  is  built  up 
almost  wholly  of  outside  materials  which  the 
living  organism  has  the  power  of  seizing  upon 
and  assimilating  to  itself.  What  is  the  germ 
in  man?  Paul  does  not  answer  further  than  to 
assure  us  that  it  is  very  largely,  at  least,  inde- 
pendent of  flesh  and  blood.  It  is  not  the  animal 
life,  for  it  does  not  build  up  an  animal  body.  On 
the  other  hand  he  declares  that  the  body  it  builds 
up  is  a  spiritual  one,  and  thus  shuts  us  up  to 
the  conclusion  that  it  is  spiritual  in  its  nature. 
His  teaching,,  -therefore,  regarding  the  change 
which  was  to  be  effected  in  the  living,  and  which 
was  to  take  the  place  of  the  work  wrought  in 
the  case  of  the  dead,  in  connection  with  their 
resurrection,  would  clearly  seem  to  be  that  the 
life  which  made  them  spiritual  entities  would  build 
for  itself  a  spiritual  body,  while  it  still  remained 
in  connection  with  the  old  body  of  flesh  and  blood ; 
and  that  this  new  order  of  things  would  be  estab- 
lished simultaneously  with  the  occurrence  of  the 
resurrection  itself.  (Vrs.  53,  54  N.  T.  in  M.  S.) 

That  this  is  really  what  he  had  in  his  mind  is 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  331 

made  clearer  still  by  words  contained  in  his  next 
letter  to  the  Corinthians — 

"We  are  not  fixing  our  attention  on  what  is 
seen,  but  on  what  is  unseen;  for  what  is  seen  is 
temporary,  but  what  is  unseen  is  enduring." 

Having  stated  this  he  went  on  to  tell  these  be- 
lievers that  it  was  the  seen  body  and  the  unseen 
body  that  he  was  contrasting  with  each  other. 

"For  we  know  that  if  our  tent — that  earthly 
body  which  is  now  our  home  is  taken  down,  we 
have  a  house  of  (rod's  building,  a  home  not  made 
by  hands,  imperishable,  in  Heaven.  Even  while 
we  are  in  our  present  body  we  sigh,  longing  to 
put  over  it  our  heavenly  dwelling,  sure  that,  when 
we  have  put  it  on,  we  shall  never  be  found  without 
bodies ! 1  For  we  who  are  in  this  'tent'  sigh  un- 
der our  burden,  unwilling  to  take  it  off,  yet  wish- 
ing to  put  our  heavenly  body  over  it,  so  that  all 
that  is  mortal  may  be  absorbed  in  Life.  And 
He  who  has  prepared  us  for  this  change  is  God, 
who  has  also  given  us  his  Spirit  as  the  pledge 
of  it."  (2nd  Cor.  5:1-5.) 

"We  shall  never  be  found  without  bodies," 
when  once  the  resurrection  is  past  and  the  new 
order  set  up.  "For  we  who  are  in  this  'tent' 
sigh  under  our  burden,  unwilling  to  take  it  off, 
yet  wishing  to  put  our  heavenly  body  over  it,  so 
that  all  that  is  mortal  may  be  absorbed  in  Life." 

i  "Without  bodies"  is  from  the  tentative  edition.  Why 
obsolete,  ugly,  misleading,  "discarnate"  was  dragged  forth 
to  take  its  place  in  the  revision,  who  shall  say? 


332  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

The  mortal  absorbed  in  Life — absorbed,  taken 
up,  caused  to  disappear — the  seen  body  swallowed 
up  by  the  unseen  body — we  shall  find  other  words 
of  his  on  this  point  in  his  letter  to  the  Romans. 
In  the  meantime  let  us  note  what  he  further  says 
here: 

"And  he  who  has  prepared  us  for  this  change 
is  God,  who  has  also  given  us  his  spirit  as  a 
pledge  of  it." 

We  have  now  before  us  in  Paul's  teaching  an 
unseen  body  enveloping  and  interpenetrating  the 
seen  body  of  flesh  and  blood,  and  the  vision  of  his 
joy  in  view  of  the  possibility  of  that  condition 
entering  into  the  actual  experience  of  himself  and 
those  to  whom  he  was  writing.  Then  the  "tent" 
of  flesh  and  blood  will  not  matter  so  much,  he 
exults.  It  will  no  longer  be  possible  to  render 
us  bodiless  when  that  time  comes.  So  far  Paul; 
but  John's  vision  of  the  souls  crying  under  the 
altar  is  another  proof  of  the  existence  of  this 
faith  and  this  yearning  in  the  apostolic  church. 
(Rev.  6:9-11.)  With  the  coming  of  the  Judge 
and  Deliverer  they  would  reach  their  full  felicity, 
through  the  attainment  of  their  spiritual  bodies. 
So  the  living  and  the  dead  joined  each  other  in  the 
one  great  cry.  And  the  souls  under  the  altar 
"were  each  given  a  white  robe,  and  they  were  told 
to  rest  yet  a  little  longer,  till  the  number  of  their 
fellow  servants  and  of  their  Brothers  who  were 
about  to  be  put  to  death,  as  they  had  been,  should 
be  complete."  The  wide-spread  extent  of  this 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  333 

yearning  is  one  of  the  startling  revelations  of 
Romans  8:18-25.  In  this  passage  Paul  tells  us 
that  "All  Nature  awaits  with  eager  expectation 
the  appearing  of  the  Sons  of  God.  For  Nature 
was  made  subject  to  imperfection — not  by  its  own 
choice — but  owing  to  him  who  made  it  so — yet 
not  without  the  hope  that  some  day  Nature  also 
will  be  set  free  from  enslavement  to  decay  and 
will  attain  to  the  freedom  which  will  mark  the 
glory  of  the  children  of  God."  (Rom.  8:19-21.) 

And  when  we  ask  what  the  glory  of  God's  son 
is  to  be,  Paul  answers  that  it  will  reach  its  height 
in)  the  realization  or  attainment  of  "our  full  adop- 
tion as  sons — the  redemption  of  our  bodies." 
(Rom.  8:23.) 

Now  the  redemption  of  the  body,  in  the  case 
of  those  who  had  died  was  to  be  accomplished  by 
means  of  the  resurrection.  But  what  of  those 
who  were  alive  in  the  flesh?  Paul's  answer  was 
that  they,  also,  were  to  be  freed  from  that  en- 
slavement to  decay,  or  to  disease  and  death  under 
which  there  had  been  such  long  inward  groaning; 
and  that  Nature  was  waiting  with  eager  expecta- 
tion to  receive  its  share  of  this  felicity.  Whether 
by  "nature"  he  described  the  animal  creation, 
or  the  animal  and  vegetable  creation  both,  or 
more,  he  opens  up  a  vast  field  here,  and  wonder- 
fully enlarges  our  view  of  Christ's  saving  pur- 
poses. 

But  enlarging  the  field  and  multiplying  the 
difficulties  to  the  utmost  possible  limit  only  served 


334  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

to  exalt  Paul's  Savior  in  the  thoughts  of  his 
bond-slave.  He  knew  that  his  Lord  would  not 
fail  nor  be  discouraged  till  all  his  work  was  done. 
Accordingly,  his  final  word  on  the  subject,  writ- 
ten as,  late  as  the  year  68  probably,  and  found  in 
second  Timothy  says  of  our  Lord — 

"He  has  made  an  end  of  death,  and  has  brought 
life  and  immortality  to  light"  (2nd  Tim.  1 :10)  ; 
from  which  we  can  see  that  the  departing  apostle 
had  lost  sight  of  the  steps  and  processes  by 
means  of  which  the  goal  had  to  be  reached,  and 
stood  in  the  very  presence  of  the  consummation 
itself,  with  his  whole  personality  bathed  in  its 
surpassing  glory.  But  the  steps  were  there  still, 
and  it  is  in  order  for  us  now  to  review  them  care- 
fully. 

Our  next  duty,  then,  is  that  of  getting  before 
our  minds  in  definite  shape  the  various  facts  con- 
nected with  the  resurrection,  which  our  present 
study  of  the  scriptures  has  brought  to  our  atten- 
tion. It  will  be  remembered  that  we  started  out 
by  stating  that  the  resurrection,  considered  by 
itself,  was  a  post  mortem  deliverance  of  the  human 
body  from  the  power  of  disease  and  death.  We 
then  found  that  the  New  Testament  writers  very 
soon  saw  that  to  make  this  deliverance  permanent, 
there  must  necessarily  be  associated  with  it  a  re- 
placing of  our  coarse  clay  with  some  substance 
out  of  which  a  body  imperishable  and  spiritual 
could  be  built  up.  They  learned  at  the  same  time 
to  associate  with  this  resurrectional  change  in  the 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  335 

bodies  of  the  dead,  a  corresponding  change  in 
the  bodies  of  those  believers  in  Christ  who  would 
be  alive  in  the  flesh  when  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead  took  place.  This  is  made  clear 
by  what  we  call  Paul's  first  letter  to  the 
Corinthians,  which  was  written  in  the  year 
57.  In  his  next  letter  to  this  same  people  he 
shows  us  that  he  had  come  to  entertain  an  even 
larger  expectation  and  hope.  It  had  been  given 
him  to  see  that  a  time  would  speedily  come,  when 
the  change  in  which  he  believed  would  involve  for 
the  living  child  of  God,  the  putting  on  or  build- 
ing up  of  the  imperishable  spiritual  body  "over" 
the  body  of  flesh  and  blood;  and  that  at  some 
time  in  the  developing  history  of  the  race's  re- 
demption this  spiritual  body  would  absorb  or 
entirely  replace  the  body  of  flesh  and  blood,  and 
so  do  away  with  death  altogether,  swallowing  it 
up  in  victory.  He  declared  to  the  Romans 
about  the  same  time  that,  not  only  God's  children 
but  nature  also  was  groaning  for  introduction  to 
this  final  "freedom  from  enslavement  to  corrup- 
tion," this  "redemption  of  our  bodies."  And  when 
he  wrote  his  last  letter  to  Timothy,  his  one  refer- 
ence to  the  matter  as  we  have  just  seen,  is  that  in 
which  writing  of  the  "appearance  of  our  Savior 
Christ  Jesus,"  he  asserts  that  "He  has  made  an 
end  of  death,  and  has  brought  life  and  immor- 
tality to  light  by  means  of  the  Good  News." 

Now  all  this  teaching   is  very   clear,  but  how 
shall  we  bring  it  into  touch  with  the  facts  of  his- 


336  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

tory  and  of  life  about  us?  Certainly  the  last 
enemy  has  not  yet  been  wholly  destroyed.  The 
words  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews  touching  our 
Lord's  triumphs  is  still  applicable.  He  is  reign- 
ing and  judging  and  punishing  and  rewarding: 

"As  yet,  however,  we  do  not  see  everything 
placed  under  man.  What  our  eyes  do  see  is 
Jesus,  who  was  made  for  a  while  lower  than 
angels,  now  because  of  his  sufferings  and  death, 
crowned;  with  glory  and  honor ;  so  that  his  tasting 
the  bitterness  of  death  should,  in  God's  loving 
kindness,  be  on  behalf  of  all  mankind.  It  was  in- 
deed, fitting  that  God  for  whom  and  through 
whom  all  things  exist,  should  when  leading  many 
sons  to  glory,  make  the  author  of  their  salvation 
perfect  through  suffering.  For  he  who  purifies, 
and  those  whom  he  purifies  all  spring  from  One; 
and  therefore  he  is  not  ashamed  to  call  them 
'Brothers.'  "  He  says— 

"I  will  tell  of  thy  name  to  my  Brothers, 

"In  the  midst  of  the  congregation  I  will  sing 
thy  praise,"  and  again: 

"As  for  me  I  will  put  my  trust  in  God." 
And  yet  again : — 

"See  here  am  I  and  the  children  whom  God 
gave  me." 

"Therefore,  since  human  nature  is  the  common 
heritage  of  'the  Children'  Jesus  also  shared  it  in 
order  that  by  his  death  he  might  render  power- 
less him  whose  power  lies  in  death — that  is,  the 
Devil — and  so  might  deliver  all  those  who,  from 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  337 

fear  of  death,  had  all  their  lives  been  living  in 
slavery."  (Heb.  2:8-15.) 

Such  was  the  apostolic  church's  faith  in  Christ. 
They  believed  that  he  had  become  a  man  in  order 
that  by  dying  himself  he  might  abolish  death  and 
render  the  Devil,  as  author  of  death,  powerless 
upon  this  planet.  But  they  saw  what  we  still 
see  to-day,  namely,  that  up  to  the  present  this 
mighty  undertaking  of  his  has  been  only  partially 
accomplished.  How  far  has  the  work  gone? 
Anything  like  a  definite  twentieth  century  answer 
is  perhaps  impossible,  just  as  it  is  impossible  for 
us  to  fix  the  date  at  which  death  will  be  finally 
chased  from  our  planet,  along  with  him  whose 
power  lies  in  it.  But  if  we  believe  on  the  testi- 
mony of  these  scriptures,  that  this  latter  time  will 
certainly  arrive,  we  must  also  accept  their  mes- 
sage regarding  the  steps  which  they  reveal  as 
preparatory  to  it.  They  are  our  sole  source  of 
information. 

We  may  prepare  the  way  for  what  still  remains 
to  be  stated  by  a  word,  which  will  perhaps  prove 
as  startling  as  it  is  self-evident.  If  the  resurrec- 
tion still  remained  to  take  place  and  were  to 
occur  to-day,  we  would  not  necessarily  know  any- 
thing about  it.  Our  bodily  ears  were  not  con- 
structed to  catch  the  notes  of  spiritual  trumpets, 
the  voices  of  archangels,  or  the  shout  of  spiritual 
hosts ;  nor  our  bodily  eyes  to  see  that  which  is 
not  matter.  We  can  hear  physical  sounds  them- 
selves only  within  a  certain  range  and  volume. 


338  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

All  the  rest  are  lost  upon  us.  We  cannot  see 
the  ether  though  it  is  all  pervasive,  nor  even  the 
particles  of  water  which  moisten  the  air  about 
us.  The  military  guard  never  reported  that  they 
saw  our  Lord  leave  Joseph's  tomb.  His  body  was 
visible  to  his  disciples  only  when  he  made  it  so. 
That  history  has  no  record  of  the  resurrection 
foretold  and  described  by  Paul  is,  therefore,  no 
proof  that  it  did  not  occur  when  he  said  it  would, 
that  is  to  say,  within  the  life-time  of  the  majority 
of  those  toi  whom  he  wrote,  and  in  connection  with 
that  coming  in  judgment  of  our  Lord,  which  he 
himself  continually  affirmed  would  take  place  be- 
fore the  generation  which  He  addressed  had 
wholly  passed!1  away.  The  alternative  to  believing 
that  it  occurred  then,  is  that  we  shall  assert  that 
Paul  made  a  mistake  in  the  matter,  which  he 
never  really  saw  or  confessed;  and  this  is  to  im- 
pugn the  accuracy,  on  a  very  important  point, 
of  the  one  inspired  writer  to  whom  we  owe  al- 
most all  the  particular  information  which  we 
have  received  upon  the  subject.  His  word  in 
second  Thessalonians,  second  chapter,  was  writ- 
ten to  correct  a  possible,  if  not  actual,  mistake 
on  their  part  and  not  on  his.  He  hints  that  they 
were  in  danger  of  being  deceived  by  men  who 
might  not  stop  even  at  forgery  in  their  attempts 
to  figure  as  teachers.  But  he  nowhere  says  that 
he  himself  was  mistaken  when  he  gave  them  to 
understand  that  the  day  was  comparatively  near. 
On  the  contrary  he  supplied  them  with  two  land- 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER 

marks  by  which  they  might  judge  of  its  distance 
in  time,  one  of  which  at  least  could  not  have  done 
otherwise  than  convince  them  further  of  its 
nearness. 

Whether  Farrar  and  others  have  been  correct 
or  not  in  teaching  that  "the  Man  of  Sin"  or  "In- 
carnation of  Wickedness"  was  Nero,  or  the  deified 
Julii,  with  Nero  as  their  crown  of  blasphemy, 
there  seems  to  be  no  real  room  for  doubt  that  "the 
Great  Apostasy,"  cited  here  and  elsewhere  in  the 
New  Testament,  was  the  one  prophesied  by  our 
Lord  himself.  Among  various  other  signs  of  his 
coming  and  of  the  close  of  the  age  Jesus  had  given 
this  one: — 

"And  then  many  will  fall  away,  and  will  betray 
one  another,  and  hate  one  another.  Many  false 
prophets  also  will  appear  and  lead  many  astray, 
and  owing  to  the  increase  of  wickedness  the  love 
of  most  will  grow  cold.  ...  I  tell  you  even 
the  present  generation  will  not  pass  away,  till 
all  these  things  have  taken  place.  The  heavens 
and  the  earth  will  pass  away,  but  my  words  shall 
never  pass  away."  (Matt.  24:10-12,  34,  35.) 

The  thing  Paul  was  teaching  these  Thessalon- 
ians  was  that  the  resurrection  which  was  to  take 
place  at  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  would  not  occur 
before  "the  Great  Apostasy"  which  the  Lord  had 
declared  would  precede  it;  though  Jesus  himself 
had  also  foretold  that  the  Apostasy,  as  well  as 
the  Coming,  would  happen  within  the  life-time 
of  the  generation  to  which  he  was  uttering  his 


340  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

prophecies.  They  would  have  to  wait  for  all  the 
events  in  the  order  in  which  the  Lord  had  placed 
them  in  his  predictions. 

Now  unless  we  can  afford  to  set  ourselves  up 
as  wiser  than  Paul  himself,  to  whom  we  owe  about 
all  we  possess  regarding  the  nature  and  time  of 
the  resurrection,  we  must  believe  that  it  occurred 
in  connection  with  that  coming  of  our  Lord.  But 
if  it  did  take  place  then,  the  statement  that  "the 
resurrection  is  past  already,"  ceased  to  be  a  heresy 
only  a  short  time  after  that  statement  was  first 
written.  And  this  ought  to  seem  to  us  perfectly 
natural,  for  as  we  have  already  observed,  it  was 
the  very  nearness  of  the  event  which  led  some  to 
believe  and  teach  that  it  had  already  happened. 
Ever  since  that  time  the  real  heresy  has  been  the 
denial  that  the  resurrection  of  God's  children  took 
place  as  predicted  by  the  New  Testament  writers. 

But  if  the  resurrection  took  place  so  long  ago 
as  the  year  68  or  70  of  our  era,  what  of  those  who 
have  died  in  the  Lord  since?  it  will  be  asked. 
Paul  has  furnished  us  with  a  full  answer.  When 
their  "tents"  of  flesh  and  blood  were  taken  down 
they  were  not  found  without  bodies,  for  they  had 
already  put  on  their  imperishable  spiritual  bodies, 
while  they  were  still  using  the  others.  And  this 
work  or  "change"  is  wrought  in  each  possessor  of 
the  new  life  in  Christ.  As  to  the  precise  sub- 
stance out  of  which  these  "celestial"  bodies  are 
built  up,  the  scripture  gives  us  no  information. 
But  the  author  of  "The  Evolution  of  Immortal- 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  341 

ity"  has  indulged  in  some  very  suggestive  con- 
jectures touching  the  subject,  which  it  may  be 
well  for  me  to  quote : 

"The  most  remarkable  feat  which  modern 
science  has  accomplished  has  been  to  establish  the 
existence  of  that  strange  substance  known  as  the 
luminiferous  or  instellar  ether,  the  medium 
through  which  the  'X  Ray'  and  wireless  teleg- 
raphy perform  their  work.  Its  existence  has 
long  been  suspected — now  it  is  known.  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  closes  his  'Principia'  with  this  prophetic 
paragraph : 

"  'And  now  we  might  add  something  concerning 
a  most  subtle  spirit  which  pervades  and  lies  hid  in  all 
gross  bodies;  by  the  force  and  action  of  which,  spirit 
the  particles  of  bodies  mutually  attract  one  another 
at  near  distances  and  cohere  if  contiguous;  and  elec- 
tric bodies  separate,  and  light  is  emitted,  reflected 
and  heats  bodies ;  and  all  sensation  is  excited,  and  the 
members  of  animal  bodies  move  at  the  command  of 
the  will,  namely  by  vibrations  of  this  spirit  mutually 
propagative  along  the  solid  filaments  of  the  nerves 
from  the  outward  organs  of  sense  to  the  brain,  and 
from  the  brain  to  the  muscles.  But  these  things  can- 
not be  explained  in  a  few  words,  nor  are  we  furnished 
with  that  sufficiency  of  experiments  which  is  neces- 
sary to  an  accurate  determination  and  demonstration 
of  the  laws  by  which  this  elastic  spirit  operates.* 

"Now  this  'subtle  spirit'  of  Sir  Isaac  has  been 
shown  to  be  not  spirit  at  all  but  a  material  medium 
which  fills  all  space  and  interpenetrates  all  that 


342  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

we  call  matter.  The  'sufficiency  of  experiments' 
which  Newton  lacked  have  been  made  by  Struve, 
Helmholtz,  Lord  Kelvin,  Dolbear,  Teslar,  Ront- 
gen'  and  a  hundred  other  mathematicians  and  phy- 
sicists. The  result  has  been  to  compel  a  new 
definition  of  matter.  Extension,  ponderability, 
form,  dimensions,  and  such  qualities  can  no  longer 
be  thought  sufficient  to  define  matter.  'Empty' 
space  can  no  longer  be  spoken  of,  for  no  portion 
of  space  is  empty.  It  can  no  longer  be  said  that 
'no  two  portions  of  matter  can  occupy  the  same 
space  at  the  same  time,'  for  they  do  so  constantly. 
Indeed,  it  seems  to  be  a  very  condition  of  the  ex- 
istence of  matter  which  we  see  that  it  should  lie 
bathed  in  a  matter  which  we  do  not  see.  For  the 
universal  ether  is  matter.  As  Lord  Kjelvin  has 
demonstrated  it  shows  in  some  ways  the  phe- 
nomena of  a  highly  tenuous  fluid,  in  others  that 
of  an  infinitely  dense  solid,  and  in  still  others  the 
properties  of  a  jelly.  It  is  the  medium  through 
which  light  moves  by  waves  of  an  ascertained 
length,  electric  energy  by  waves  of  a  different 
length,  heat  by  still  a  third,  and  the  energy  which 
we  call  gravitation  by  some  means  not  yet  ascer- 
tained. It  has  been  weighed  and  measured.  A 
sphere  of  it  the  size  of  the  earth  would,  if  com- 
pressed to  the  density  of  the  earth,  be  in  size 
somewhere  between  a  marble  and  an  orange.  It 
is  the  medium  in  the  opaque  flesh  through  which 
the  invisible  rays  of  light  pass  to  form  an  X  ray 
photograph.  Its  waves  flow  through  so  dense 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  343 

a  mass  of  matter  as  a  block  of  glass,  as  water 
flows  through  a  sieve.  It  is  the  medium  in  which 
the  elemental  energies  of  heat,  light,  electricity 
and  possibly  chemical  energy  do  their  work. 
May  not  vital  energy  be  concerned  with  it  as 
well? 

"I  venture  to  say  in  parenthesis  that  it  is  not 
easy  to  understand  why  the  physicists  are  so  re- 
luctant to  admit  the  existence  of  such  an  objec- 
tive fact  as  'Vital  energy.'  Surely  there  are 
abundant  phenomena  which  cannot  be  forced  to 
come  under  any  other  form  of  energy  known. 
Suppose  the  phrase  is  but  a  name  for  a  set  of 
phenomena  whose  essential  nature  is  not  under- 
stood, that  much  may  be  said  of  all  the  other 
categories  of  energy. 

"It  is  now  more  than  twenty  years  since  two 
distinguished  English  men  of  science,  Professors 
Balfour  Stewart  and  P.  G.  Tait,  put  forth 
hesitatingly  a  theory  of  a  physical  basis  of  a 
future  life.  Starting  from  the  evident  double 
truth  that  all  physical  activity  is  associated 
with  molecular  activity  in  the  matter  of 
the  brain  and  nerves,  while  at  the  same  time 
physical  and  psychical  phenomena  are  evidently 
different  things,  they  suggest  that  there  may  well 
be  a  tertium  quid,  a  third  something,  which  serves 
as  a  nexus  between  them,  and  that  ethereal  mat- 
ter may  be  such  a  thing. 

"Each  thought  we  think,  each  emotion  we  feel, 
is  accompanied  by  certain  molecular  movements 


344  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

and  rearrangements  in  the  brain.  The  psychical 
activity  actually  builds  up  a  physical  fabric  for 
itself.  But  the  material  fabric  is  every  moment 
disintegrating,  and  at  death  falls  into  ruin. 
Now  suppose  that  before  that  ruin  befals,  the 
soul  shall  have  been  able  to  build  up,  as  it  were, 
a  brain  within  a  brain,  a  body  within  a  body, 
something  like  that  which  the  Orientals  have  for 
ages  spoken  of  as  the  'Astral  Body.'  Then 
when  the  body  of  flesh  shall  crumble  away,  there 
would  be  left  a  body,  material  to  be  sure,  but  com- 
pacted of  a  kind  of  matter  which  behaves  quite 
differently  from  that  which  our  sense  perceptions 
deal  with.  It  is  a  material  which,  so  far  as 
science  has  anything  to  say,  is  essentially  inde- 
structible. It  moves  freely  amongst  and  through 
ordinary  matter  without  let  or  hindrance.  It  is 
not  difficult  at  any  rate  to  form  a  picture  of  a 
life  based  upon  its  organization.  From  the  in- 
dividual spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect,  this 
present  'muddy  vesture  of  decay'  has  dropped 
away,  leaving  them  'not  unclothed  but  clothed 
upon.'  They  are  still  men.  They  have  rational 
souls  with  material  bodies  fit  to  sustain  and  to  ex- 
press their  psychical  life.  The  matter  of  their 
bodies  is  obedient  to  the  laws  of  matter  and  life, 
but  to  the  laws  of  that  kind  of  life  and  matter. 
'There  are  celestial  bodies  and  bodies  terres- 
trial,' and  each  has  its  own  mode  of  action. 
Such  ethereal  bodies  compacted  with  living 
souls  would  of  necessity  inhabit  a  universe  of  their 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  345 

own,  even  though  that  universe  should  occupy  the 
same  space  that  this  one  does.  Neither  earth, 
nor  fire,  nor  water  could  in  the  least  impede  their 
movement.  In  frost  and  flame  they  would  be 
equally  at  home.  With  the  swiftness  of  light  or 
gravitation  they  could  speed  from  where  old 
Bootes  leads  his  leash  to  where  Sagittarius  draws 
his  bow  in  the  South.  With  bodies  of  such  firm 
stuff  compounded,  and  so  plastic  to  the  uses  of  the 
Spirit,  their  knowledge  would  expand  until  na- 
ture's secrets  should  lie  open  to  their  eyes." 

As  already  indicated,  all  this  is  extremely  sug- 
gestive as  well  as  instructive.  But  it  is  doubtful 
if  this  idea  of  an  "Ethereal"  body  quite  coincides 
with  Paul's  idea  of  an  imperishable  spiritual  one. 
However,  in  this  region  one  cannot  speak  with 
certainty.  And  happily  we  do  not  need  to  know 
either  the  how  or  the  why  of  some  of  the  divine 
operations. 

But  Paul's  vision  of  the  wonders  of  this 
"change"  reveals  a  crowning  glory.  All  along 
the  Christian  ages  the  body  of  flesh  and  blood  has 
been  the  cause  of  much  groaning  because  it  has 
been  the  victim  of  disease  and  death.  The 
apostle,  however,  discloses  a  larger  hope.  The 
body,  too,  is  to  be  redeemed  in  the  case  of  God's 
sons,  and  nature  is  to  have  its  share  in  that 
felicity.  Then  there  will  no  longer  be  any  "en- 
slavement to  decay"  but  "all  that  is  mortal  will  be 
absorbed  in  life" ;  and  health,  energy,  activity  and 
enjoyment  will  be  the  lot  of  the  body  of  flesh  and 


346  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

blood,  until  it  is  "absorbed"  by  the  spiritual  body, 
which  will  be  "over'*  it,  covering  and  interpene- 
trating it;  and  nature  also  will  at  last  have  come 
fully  under  the  reign  of  life. 

To  what  age  will  God's  children  in  that  coming 
time  attain  before  this  absorption  of  their  mortal 
bodies  will  free  them  for  full  entrance  upon  the 
larger  possibilities  which  naturally  belong  to 
bodies  celestial?  Who  shall  say?  All  we  can  do 
now  is  to  wonder  and  adore  in  the  presence  of  our 
God  who  has  made  his  Son  such  an  uttermost  de- 
liverer from  death. 

The  resurrection  of  the  wicked  does  not  come 
within  the  scope  of  our  theme  and  has,  therefore, 
not  been  touched  upon.  That  there  is  to  be  such 
a  resurrection  is  more  than  once  affirmed  in  the 
Scriptures,  and  among  others  by  our  Lord  Him- 
self. The  distinction  between  it  and  that  of 
God's  children  is  probably  the  one  which  is  so 
definitely  drawn  in  Revelation  20:4-6.  But  it 
is  not  for  us  to  deal  with  it  now. 

There  is,  however,  one  more  word  of  Paul's 
which  claims  our  notice.  It  is  that  confession 
from  the  heart  which  we  find  in  his  letter  to  the 
Philippians — 

"Then  indeed  I  shall  know  Christ,  and  the 
power  of  his  resurrection,  and  all  that  it  means 
to  share  his  sufferings,  in  the  hope  that  if  I  be- 
come like  him  in  his  death,  I  may  possibly  attain 
to  the  resurrection  from  the  dead."  (Phil.  3: 
10,  11.) 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  347 

Those  commentators!  have  been  on  the  true  path 
of  interpretation  who  have  claimed  that  the 
resurrection  which  the  apostle  coveted  was  one  of 
an  unusual  sort.  If  anyone  could  have  considered 
himself  assured  of  the  resurrection  which  was 
to  be  the  common  experience  of  the  vast  body  of 
believers,  surely  he  could  have  done  so.  But  he 
was  not  content  simply  to  look  forward  to  that. 
That  he  expected  to  die  before  the  Coming  of  the 
Lord  at  the  time  he  wrote  this  letter,  is  probably 
clear,  though  he  anticipated  release  from  prison 
and  an  opportunity  of  paying  the  Philippian 
church  another  visit.  And  his  ambition  was  so  to 
increase  in  the  knowledge  of  Christ,  during  the 
intervening  months  or  years,  so  to  drink  in  the 
power  of  his  resurrection,  and  so  to  share  his 
sufferings,  and  then  at  the  last,  so  to  resemble 
him  in  his  death,  that  he  might  be  lifted  com- 
pletely above  the  great  body  of  imperfect  be- 
lievers and  be  granted  a  resurrection,  not  like 
theirs,  but  like  his  Lord's.  It  was  not  a  selfish 
wish,  it  was  rather  the  opposite  of  that,  for  it 
meant  unusual  self-denial,  cross-bearing  and  serv- 
ice; and  his  straining  of  every  nerve  would  not 
hinder  any  other  believer,  but  would,  on  the  con- 
trary, make  him  an  example  and  inspiration  for 
them  all. 

But  what  was  the  difference  between  the  two 
resurrections?  The  bodies  of  believers  generally 
would  undergo  corruption.  The  Lord's  did  not, 
and  Paul  wished  the  same  exemption  from  decay. 


348  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

At  least  one  seems  shut  up  to  this  very  natural 
interpretation  of  his  words,  for  no  other  appears 
possible.  He  had  visions  of  the  glorious  pos- 
sibilities, or  rather  of  the  growing  wealth  of  bless- 
ing which  was  wrapped  up  in  Christ's  resurrec- 
tion for  the  generations  of  men  that  were  to  suc- 
ceed each  other  after  the  Coming,  and  especially 
in  the  far  future  of  the  Church's  maturity,  and 
he  longed  to  attain  to  all  that  was  possible  in  his 
own  early  day.  He  seems  to  have  concluded  that 
he  could  not  hope  to  escape  death  itself.  It  was 
too  soon  in  the  history  of  the  Redeemer's  work 
for  that.  But  he  did  venture  to  indulge  in  the 
yearning  desire  that  it  might  be  with  him  as  it 
had  been  with  the  Lord  himself,  who,  though  he 
could  not  avoid  death,  did  wholly  escape  corrup- 
tion. To  get  the  full  sense  of  this  declaration, 
therefore,  we  have  but  to  add  to  it  three  words, 
thus: — "Then  indeed  I  shall  know  Christ,  and 
the  power  of  his  resurrection,  and  all  that  it 
means  to  share  his  sufferings,  in  the  hope  that 
if  I  become  like  him  in  his  death,  I  may  possibly 
attain  to  the  resurrection  from  the  dead,"  which 
was  His. 

How  strikingly  this  yearning  ambition  of 
Paul's  harmonizes  with  all  that  teaching  of  his 
which  we  have  been  reviewing!  And  this  chapter 
cannot  close  better  than  with  these  words  of  his 
to  those  same  Philippians: 

"The  State  of  which  we  are  citizens  is  in 
Heaven;  and  it  is  from  Heaven  we  are  eagerly 


JESUS  THE  DELIVERER  349 

looking  for  a  Savior,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who 
by  the  exercise  of  his  power  to  bring  everything 
into  subjection  to  himself,  will  change  this  body 
that  we  have  in  our  humiliation,  until  it  is  of  the 
same  nature  as  the  body  which  he  has  in  his 
glory."1  (Phil.  3:20-21.) 

To  Paul  in  his  Roman  prison,  the  coming  or 
revelation  of  the  Savior  from  Heaven  as  Judge 
was  an  eager  expectation.  To  us  in  this  twen- 
tieth century,  it  is  an  event  long  past,  the  blessed 
fruits  of  which  are  ours  in  part.  And  we  know 
that  nothing  of  all  that  was  pledged  in  connec- 
tion with  it  will  fail  to  arrive  in  its  time. 

i  This  final  clause  and  the  one  preceding  it  are  from  the 
tentative  version  of  the  T.  C.  N.  T. 


XXI 

JESUS  AND  NATIONAL  DESTINY 

The  apostles  of  Christ  believed  in  rewards  and 
punishments  for  the  individual  man  under  the 
reign  of  their  Lord.  They  held  also,  and  with 
equal  tenacity,  to  the  doctrine  of  a  judgment  for 
their  own  people  as  a  nation,  and  for  all  the  other 
peoples  of  the  earth,  under  that  same  rule. 
They  knew  that  it  was  to  a  people  their  Lord 
came  at  the  time  of  his  incarnation. 

"He  came  to  his  own — 

Yet  his  own  did  not  receive  him." 
This  failure  to  receive  him  was  fatal.  Our  Lord 
taught  the  Jews  this,  when  he  told  them  the  story 
of  the  tenants  of  a  certain  vineyard,  who  refused 
the  owner  his  rightful  share  of  the  produce,  beat 
or  killed  or  stoned  each  servant  he  sent  to  demand 
it,  and  finally,  when  he  sent  his  Son  and  heir,  killed 
him  also,  in  the  hope  that  they  would  thus  secure 
the  vineyard  for  themselves ;  adding — 

"And  that,  I  tell  you,  is  why  the  kingdom  of 
God  will  be  taken  from  you,  and  given  to  a  nation 
that  does  produce  the  fruit  of  the  Kingdom." 
He  had  already  asked:  "Have  you  never  read  in 
the  scriptures — 

"  'The  very;  stone  which  the  builders  despised 
350 


JESUS  AND  NATIONAL  DESTINY     351 

"  'Has  now  itself  become  the  corner  stone ; 

"  'This  corner  stone  has  come  from  the  Lord, 

"  'And  is  marvelous  in  our  eyes  ?' 

"Yes,  and  he  who  falls  on  this  stone  will  be 
dashed  to  pieces,  while  any  one  on  whom  it  falls — 
it  will  scatter  him  as  dust." 

Our  Lord's  teaching  regarding  his  disposal 
as  judge,  of  all  other  peoples  right  down  to  the 
end  of  human  history,  was  very  explicit.  That 
teaching  we  find  in  Matthew  25  :31 — 

"When  the  Son  of  Man  has  come  in  his  glory 
and  all  the  angels  with  him,  then  he  'will  take  his 
seat  on  his  glory;'  and  all  the  nations  will  be 
gathered  before  him,  and  he  will  separate  the 
people — just  as  a  shepherd  separates  sheep  from 
goats — placing  the  sheep  on  his  right  hand  and 
the  goats  on  his  left.  Then  the  king  will  say  to 
those  on  his  right,  'Come,  you  who  are  blessed  by 
my  Father,  enter  upon  possession  of  the  kingdom 
prepared  for  you  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the 
world.  For  when  I  was  hungry,  you  gave  me 
food;  when  I  was  thirsty,  you  gave  me  drink; 
when  I  wras  a  stranger,  you  took  me  to  your 
homes ;  when  I  was  naked,  you  clothed  me ;  when 
I  fell  ill,  you  visited  me ;  and  when  I  was  in  prison, 
you  came  to  me.  ...  I  tell  you,  as  often 
as  you  did  it  to  one  of  these  my  brothers,  however 
lowly,  you  did  it  to  me/  " 

It  is  unnecessary  to  quote  further  from  this 
illustrative  story  of  our  Lord,  its  language  is 
so  familiar.  He  was  here  teaching  that  the 


352  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

peoples  that  would  receive  him  in  the  persons  of 
his  humblest  followers,  were  the  peoples  that  would 
rise,  and  flourish  and  continue;  while  those 
peoples  that  rejected  him  in  the  persons  of  these 
followers  of  his,  would  simply  perish  from  the 
earth. 

This  interpretation  is  likely  to  be  opposed  as 
depriving  us  of  what  has  so  long  been  considered 
as  our  most  vivid  description  of  a  final  literal  day 
of  judgment.  There  is  no  need  for  arguing  the 
matter  here  at  any  length.  It  will  be  sufficient 
merely  to  indicate  two  considerations  which 
would  seem  to  be  decisive. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  when  men  come  before 
the  bar  of  God  as  individuals,  each  must  appear 
as  belonging  to  one  of  two  classes,  whereas  there 
are  here  three  classes — those  on  the  right  hand, 
those  on  the  left  hand,  and  "these  my  brothers" ; 
and  the  first  and  second  classes  are  each  appointed 
to  a  destiny  in  view  of  its  treatment  of  the  third. 
In  the  second  place,  the  standard  applied  is  not 
one  by  means  of  which  it  can  be  judged  whether 
or  not  a  man  or  woman  has  received  Christ  spirit- 
ually. It  was,  however,  the  very  test  which  was 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  peoples  of  the  earth,  the 
moment  the  gospel  began  to  be  preached  to  them, 
"with  the  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit  sent  from 
heaven."  The  Jewish  people  went  down  under  its 
application  almost  at  once,  and  that  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  they  were  the  very  people  whom  it 
was  intended  most  to  exalt.  And  one  of  the  great 


JESUS  AND  NATIONAL  DESTINY     353 

outstanding  facts  of  the  Christian  ages  is  that 
power  and  prosperity  of  every  sort  have  come  most 
largely  to  those  peoples  who  have  assisted  the  lowly 
brethren  of  Jesus  to  the  greatest  extent;  while 
those  which  have  lacked  in  hospitality  and  generos- 
ity towards  them  have  been  forced  to  listen  to  the 
awful  words  of  condemnation  uttered  against  them 
by  "the  King."  Look  at  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States,  and  afterwards  at  Spain,  for  in- 
stance. Surely  the  King  has  set  those  peoples  in 
two  classes.  Two  he  has  placed  on  the  right  hand 
of  his  power,  the  other  he  has  sent  to  his  left. 
Two  have  heard,  "Come,  you  who  are  blessed  by 
my  Father,  enter  upon  possession  of  the  Kingdom 
prepared  for  you  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the 
world."  The  other  has  as  surely  heard  the  words, 
"Go  from  my  presence,  accursed,  into  the  aeon- 
ian  fire  (the  consuming  fire  of  my  disapproval) 
which  has  been  prepared  for  the  Devil  and  his 
angels."  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt, 
either,  that  their  opposite  treatment  of  Christ's 
brothers  is  the  thing  in  view  of  which  they  have 
been  rewarded  and  punished. 

In  studying  this  whole  subject  from  the  apos- 
tolic standpoint,  it  may  be  said,  first  of  all,  that 
at  the  time  of  our  Lord's  ascension,  two  things 
remained  to  be  accomplished.  First,  his  king- 
dom had  to  be  definitely  inaugurated.  That  king- 
dom was  to  be  primarily  spiritual,  and,  as  such, 
it  was  not  yet  properly  established  in  the  hearts 
of  even  his  leading  disciples,  to  say  nothing  of 


354  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

Judaism  or  the  world  as  a  whole ;  but  it  was  meant 
for  all  alike.  In  the  second  place,  the  deadly 
hostility  to  that  kingdom  which  had  crucified  him, 
and  was  even  then  attempting  to  cover  up  the  fact 
of  his  resurrection  with  a  lie,  had  to  be  removed, 
through  the  conversion  of  these  Jewish  enemies 
to  loyal  subjects  of  his,  or  failing  that,  through 
their  utter  overthrow  as  an  organized  power. 
Pentecost  witnessed  the  establishment  of  his  king- 
dom in  the  hearts  of  the  one  hundred  and  twenty 
who  were  in  the  upper  room  waiting  for  the  ful- 
fillment of  his  promise  of  the  coming  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  that  Kingdom's  introduction  through 
their  testimony  to  thousands  of  other  hearts. 
Then  there  followed  the  steady  persistent  effort 
to  convert  all  opposers  into  supporters — an  ef- 
fort which  at  one  time  seemed  to  those  engaged 
in  it  far  from  hopeless ;  for  "God's  message 
spread,  and  the  number  of  the  disciples  continued 
to  increase  rapidly  in  Jerusalem,  and  a  large  body 
of  the  priests  accepted  the  faith." 

In  connection  with  this  effort  we  have  two  very 
illuminating  words.  These  were  both  spoken  by 
Peter  on  the  occasion  of  the  healing*  of  the  cripple 
"at  the  gate  of  the  temple  called  'the  Beautiful 
Gate.'  '  For  their  proper  understanding  in  our 
times  the  second  should  be  read  first.  It  is  this — 

"You  yourselves  are  the  heirs  of  the  prophets, 
and  heirs,  too,  of  the  Covenant  which  God  made 
with  your  ancestors,  when  he  said  to  Abraham, 
'In  your  descendants  will  all  the  nations  of  the 


JESUS  AND  NATIONAL  DESTINY     355 

earth  be  blessed.'  For  you,  first,  God  raised  up 
his  Servant,  and  sent  him  to  bless  you,  by  turning 
each  one  of  you  from  his  wicked  ways." 

The  words  "raised  up"  here,  mean  caused  to 
stand  or  established,  and  must  almost  of  neces- 
sity be  understood  as  describing  that  act  of  God, 
by  means  of  which  he  brought  back  his  Son  from 
the  dead  "and  exalted  him  to  his  right  hand  to  be 
a  Guide  and  a  Savior,  to  give  Israel  repentance 
and  forgiveness  of  sins."  By  his  resurrection 
and  by  it  alone  was  our  Lord  caused  to  stand  im- 
movably as  the  chosen  Servant  of  God.  But  for 
that  his  incarnation  and  whole  earthly  career 
would  have  proved  fruitless.  Upon  this  point 
Paul  in  particular  insists  most  strongly.  And 
it  was  this  resurrection-vindicated  Servant  of  God 
that  Peter  told  the  people  had  been  sent  with 
blessings  for  them. 

Here  then  is  a  second  coming  of  our  Lord.  It 
was  a  coming  in  the  Spirit  for  a  specific  object, 
namely,  the  Salvation,  first  of  all,  of  the  Jewish 
people.  Does  this  sound  strange?  But  how 
could  he  have  fulfilled  the  promise  made  to  his 
disciples,  "I  shall  myself  be  always  with  you," 
without  coming  again  and  in  a  spiritual  manner? 

Pentecost  witnessed  our  Lord's  second  coming 
as  a  Spiritual  Savior,  according-  to  Peter. 

But  Peter  has  another  word — 

"Therefore,  repent  and  turn,  that  your  sins 
may  be  wiped  away;  so  that  happier  times  may 
come  from  the  Lord  himself,  and  that  he  may 


356  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

send  you,  in  Jesus,  your  long-appointed  Christ. 
But  heaven  must  be  his  home,  until  the  days  of 
the  Universal  Restoration,  of  which  God  has 
spoken  by  the  lips  of  his  holy  prophets  from  the 
very  first."  Did  Peter,  then,  think  of  Jesus  as 
here,  and,  at  the  same  time,  as  not  here,  but  still 
to  come  ?  Yes ;  he  regarded  him  as  having  been 
definitely  revealed  in  his  office  of  Savior  from  sin, 
and  as  still  to  be  shown  forth  as  restorer  of  the 
outward  fortunes  of  his  people.  This  is  the  order 
which  has  always  been  observed.  Spiritual  sal- 
vation first,  then,  as  a  sure  result  of  the  stead- 
fast, unalterable  choice  of  Christ,  material,  so- 
cial, political  salvation — sins  wiped  away  and 
afterwards  "happier  times"  for  those  who  have 
experienced  the  cleansing  and  for  all  with  whom 
they  are  vitally  associated.  We  may,  therefore, 
put  Peter's  word  to  his  people  thus — "You  must 
first  accept  Jesus  as  your  Savior  from  sin.  He 
has  already  come  again  to  you  in  that  office ;  and 
until  he  has  been  received  by  you  as  such,  he  can- 
not come  again  as  the  restorer  of  your  outward 
fortunes  as  a  people." 

But  Israel  rejected  this  gospel  of  her  deliver- 
ance, and  when  Jesus  did  come  in  his  office  of 
Universal  Restorer  at  the  very  end  of  the  Mosaic 
age,  he  was  compelled  in  strictest  accord  with  his 
own  predictions,  to  send  his  angels  to  gather 
them  from  his  kingdom  because  they  were  a  hin- 
drance to  men,  and  a  people  that  could  not  be 
drawn  from  its  life  of  sin.  (Matt.  13:41.)  And 


JESUS  AND  NATIONAL  DESTINY     357 

to-day  it  is  only  permitted  us  to  ask  with  grieved 
hearts,  what  Israel's  happier  days,  coming  di- 
rect from  the  Lord,  would  have  been  for  that 
people  itself  and  the  world  at  large,  had  she  re- 
ceived Christ  as  her  Savior  from  sin  instead  of 
rejecting  him  in  all  his  offices.  In  the  meantime 
our  examination  of  Peter's  gospel  to  the  Jew  has 
served  to  show  us  more  clearly  the  nature  of  our 
Lord's  second  coming.  It  was  Ms  revelation  in 
his  different  offices,  and  not  some  instantaneous 
spectacular  display  in  the  region  of  the  bodily 
senses. 

There  is  one  more  word  in  "The  Acts"  to  which 
attention  may  well  be  called  here.  It  is  the  mes- 
sage whicfy  was  delivered  by  the  angels  at  the  time 
of  our  Lord's  ascension — 

"Men  of  Galilee,  why  are  you  standing  here 
looking  up  into  the  heavens?  This  very  Jesus, 
who  has  been  taken  from  you  into  the  heavens, 
will  come  in  the  very  way  in  which  you  have  seen 
him  go  into  the  heavens."  (Acts  1:11.)  In 
what  manner,  then,  did  he  go  into  the  heavens? 
Invisibly.  "He  was  caught  up  before  their  eyes, 
and  a  cloud  received  him  from  their  sight." 
(Acts  1:9.)  This  is  the  apostolic  record.  They 
could  not,  with  their  bodily  eyes,  see  him  go  into 
the  heavens.  Neither  were  they,  with  their  bodily 
eyes,  to  see  him  return  to  the  earth.  Yet  he  was 
to  come  in  power  and  great  glory.  There  is  a 
power  and  a  glory  concerning  which  our  bodily 
eyes  have  brought  us  no  information,  but  we  are 


358  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

such  confirmed  materialists  that  we  can  scarcely 
believe  it.  Coming  in  clouds,  or  invisibly  and 
spiritually,  is  ever  the  word  that  greets  us.  The 
exceptions  are  only  seeming.  And  so,  according 
to  apostolic  teaching,  our  Lord  came  again,  and 
is  here  both  as  Savior  and  Judge. 

If  it  were  worth  while,  we  could  bring  forward 
here  testimony  from  the  Latin  and  Greek  authors 
of  the  first  century,  including  those  of  the  New 
Testament,  to  show  that  all  the  events  mentioned 
by  our  Lord  as  signs  of  his  coming  or  revelation 
in  his  office  of  Judge,  and  of  the  end  of  the  age 
in  which  he  lived  and  labored  and  died  and  rose 
again,  not  excepting  the  preaching  of  his  gospel 
"in  all  creation  under  heaven,"  came  to  pass  as 
predicted  by  him.  (Col.  1 :23,  R.  V.)  It  is  suffi- 
cient for  us  to  say  that  the  world  of  Mosaism 
came  to  a  very  definite  end  with  the  destruction 
of  its  great  city  and  temple,  and  the  wholesale 
slaughter  and  carrying  away  into  captivity  of 
the  Jewish  people.  Then  the  priesthood  and  the 
daily  sacrifice  went  out  no  more  to  return.  And 
why  did  they  disappear?  That  he  might  come 
into  full  view  who,  "after  he  had  offered  one 
sacrifice  for  sins,  which  should  serve  for  all  time, 
'took  his  seat  at  the  right  hand  of  God.'  "  (Heb. 
10:12.)  They  disappeared  because  our  Lord 
came  then  as  Judge  and  removed  them,  as  the 
writer  of  "Hebrews"  said  he  would,  on  account 
of  their  unfitness  to  bear  the  test  to  which  he  was 
subjecting  them.  (Heb.  12:26,  27.) 


JESUS  AND  NATIONAL  DESTINY     359 

To  define  our  Lord's  second  coming  in  agree- 
ment with  apostolic  teaching,  we  may  say  that 
it  was  his  revelation  to  men,  first  as  spiritual  Sav- 
ior and  then  as  Judge,  within  the  life  time  of  the 
generation  that  had  seen  him  in  the  flesh. 

And  here  we  may  use  the  word  inauguration  in 
addition  to  the  word  revelation,  and  say  that 
Jesus  was  publicly  inaugurated  as  Savior,  when 
on  the  day  of  Pentecost  he  was  so  gloriously 
heralded  as  such,  that  three  thousand  persons 
acknowledged  him  at  once;  and  that  his  inau- 
guration as  Judge,  in  connection  with  the  over- 
throw of  worn-out  and  corrupted  Mosaism,  is 
perhaps  the  most  awe-inspiring  event  of  history. 
The  Savior  was  saving  and  the  King  was  reign- 
ing and  judging  before  Pentecost  came,  or  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  took  place,  but  the  fact 
was  not  made  strikingly  apparent  before  these 
events  or  inaugurations.  Then,  however,  the 
greatness  of  the  glorified  Man  of  Nazareth,  both 
as  Savior  and  Royal  Judge,  was  marvelously  dis- 
closed. 

He  is  still  carrying  on  the  work  of  both  his 
offices.  It  is  constantly  the  day  of  Salvation, 
and  constantly,  also,  the  day  of  judgment. 
Those  peoples  which  receive  him  as  Savior  and 
King  are  by  him  appointed  to  careers  of  progress 
and  growing  power  and  prosperity;  while  those 
who  do  not  so  receive  him,  find  themselves  in  the 
slippery  places  of  disaster  and  ruin.  And  all 
this  is  just  as  he  himself  foretold  it.  Moreover, 


360  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

temporal  salvation  and  temporal  disaster  or  ruin 
are  often  to  be  seen  in  the  same  event.  Every- 
thing depends  upon  the  standpoint  from  which 
the  event  is  viewed.  The  destruction  of  the  Span- 
ish Armada  was  a  disaster  for  Spain,  but  to  the 
English  it  meant  salvation.  The  destruction  of 
Napoleon  I,  as  Emperor  of  the  French,  was 
the  deliverance  of  Europe;  just  as  the  defeat  of 
the  Saracens  by  Charles  Martel;  in  732,  and  again 
in  738;  and  the  overthrow  of  the  Turks  under 
the  walls  of  Vienna,  by  John  Sobieski  in  1683, 
had  been  its  salvation  before.  And  each  work  of 
destruction  and  deliverance  which  abases  the 
worse  and  exalts  the  better,  is  done  in  the  further- 
ance of  his  will. 

In  the  overthrow  of  his  foes  and  the  deliverance 
of  his  own  our  Lord  uses  a  variety  of  instruments, 
including  armed  men  and  the  forces  of  nature. 
But  the  apostolic  church  saw  that  his  greatest 
engine  of  destruction  as  well  as  of  salvation,  is 
his  truth.  Accordingly  Paul  wrote  to  the  Thes- 
salonians — 

"Wickedness  indeed  is  already  at  work  in  se- 
cret; but  only  until  he  who  at  present  restrains 
it  is  removed  out  of  the  way.  Then  will  'Wick- 
edness Incarnate'  appear,  but  the  Lord  Jesus  will 
destroy  him  with  the  breath  of  his  lips,  and  an- 
nihilate him  with  the  splendor  of  his  coming." 
(2nd  Thess.  2:7,  8.)  Probably  Paul  had  the 
deification  of  the  Roman  emperors,  and  their 
growingly  blasphemous  claims  to  divine  honors 


JESUS  AND  NATIONAL  DESTINY     361 

in  mind  when  he  wrote  these  words.  But  what- 
ever the  thing  or  person  may  have  been  which 
he  described  as  "Wickedness  Incarnate,"  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that,  by  the  breath  of  our  Lord's 
lips  and  the  splendor  of  his  coming,  which  were 
to  destroy  him,  he  meant  his  word,  or  the  truth 
spoken  by  him,  on  the  one  hand,  and  standing 
inherent  and  resplendent  in  his  character,  on  the 
other. 

This  destroying  might  of  the  word  of  Christ 
was  constantly  present  in  the  mind  of  John  when 
he  penned  the  book  of  "The  Revelation."  In 
describing  his  glorified  Lord  as  he  appeared  to 
him  on  Patmos,  he  writes — 

"From  his  mouth  came  a  sharp  two-edged 
sword."  (Rev.  1 :16.)  The  opening  words  to 
the  angel  of  the  church  at  Pergamus  are — 
"These  are  the  words  of  him  who  holds  the  sharp 
^two-edged  sword."  (Rev.  2:12.)  And  the 
warning  to  the  Nicolaitans  of  that  Church  was — 
"Repent,  therefore,  or  else  I  will  come  quickly 
and  contend  with  such  men  with  words  that  will 
cut  like  a  sword."  (Rev.  2:16.)  Exceedingly 
striking,  too,  from  this  standpoint,  are  some  later 
words  of  this  same  book — 

"Then  I  saw  that  heaven  lay  open.  There  ap- 
pears a  white  horse;  its  rider  is  called  'Faithful' 
and  'True';  righteously  does  he  judge  and  make 
war.  His  eyes  are  flaming  fires;  on  his  head 
are  many  diadems,  and  he  bears  a  name,  written, 
which  no  one  knows  but  himself;  he  has  been 


362  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

clothed  in  a  garment  sprinkled  with  blood;  and 
the  name  by  which  he  is  called  is  'The  Word  of 
God.'  The  armies  of  heaven  followed  him, 
mounted  on  white  horses  and  clothed  in  fine  linen, 
white  and  pure.  From  his  mouth  comes  a  sharp 
sword  with  which  'to  smite  the  nations;  and  he 
will  rule  them  with  an  iron  rod.'  He  'treads  the 
grapes  in  the  press'  of  the  maddening  wine  of  the 
wrath  of  Almighty  God;  and  on  his  robe  and  on 
his  thigh  he  has  the  name  written — 'KING  OF 
KINGS  AND  LORD  OF  LORDS/  Then  I  saw  an  angel 
standing  on  the  sun.  He  cried  in  a  loud  voice 
to  all  the  birds  that  fly  in  mid-heaven — 'Gather 
and  come  to  the  great  feast  of  God,  to  eat  the 
flesh  of  Kings,  and  the  flesh  of  commanders,  and 
the  flesh  of  mighty  men,  and  the  fiesh  of  horses 
and  their  riders,  and  the  flesh  of  all  freemen  and 
slaves,  and  of  high  and  low.' 

"Then  I  saw  the  Beast  and  the  Kings  of  the 
earth  and  their  armies,  gathered  together  to  fight 
with  him  who  sat  on  the  horse  and  with  his  army. 
The  Beast  was  captured,  and  with  him  was  taken 
the  false  Prophet,  who  performed  the  marvels 
before  the  eyes  of  the  Beast,  with  which  he  de- 
ceived those  who  had  received  the  brand  of  the 
beast  and  those  who  worshiped  his  image.  Alive, 
they  were  thrown,  both  of  them,  into  the  fiery 
lake  'of  burning  sulphur.'  The  rest  were  killed 
by  the  sword  which  came  out  of  the  mouth  of  him 
who  rode  upon  the  horse;  and  all  the  birds  fed 
upon  their  flesh."  (Rev.  19:11-21.) 


JESUS  AND  NATIONAL  DESTINY     363 

This  is  how  John  saw  the  events  of  the  year 
of  our  Lord  68,  or  a  few  months  later.  The 
Great  King  was  dealing  with  the  nations.  Jeru- 
salem was  not  yet  destroyed,  but  the  wrath 
which  was  to  the  uttermost  was  already  being 
visited  upon  the  Jewish  people.  And  as  John 
gazed  upon  the  scene,  the  element  of  time  was 
eliminated  from  his  thoughts,  and  all  the  Christ 
rejecting  nations  of  the  coming  years,  with  all 
their  hideous  tyrannies,  their  falsehoods  and  their 
blasphemies,  as  already  so  definitely  represented 
by  Rome  herself,  became  one  vast  host,  that  had 
to  be  met  and  overcome  by  the  armies  of  heaven, 
and  their  Commander-in-chief,  the  King  of  Kings 
and  Lord  of  Lords.  The  battle  was  joined,  and 
there  was  red  carnage  enough,  no  doubt.  But 
it  was  not  the  slaughter  of  any  physical  battle- 
field that  impressed  John.  He  saw  greater  tri- 
umphs than  have  ever  been  won  thus.  He  saw 
the  very  spirit  of  tyranny  and  the  very  spirit  of 
lying  error,  borne  down,  taken  as  prisoners  and 
"thrown  alive,  both  of  them,  into  the  fiery  lake 
of  burning  sulphur."  And  the  only  slaughter 
that  he  describes  was  done  "by  the  sword  which 
came  out  of  the  mouth  of  him  who  rode  upon 
the  horse";  that  is,  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as 
"The  Truth." 

And  all  this  is  quite  in  agreement  with  things 
as  we  know  them.  War  serves  a  purpose.  It 
often  tests  the  quality  of  the  men  whom  it  brings 
face  to  face  in  deadly  conflict,  in  such  a  way  as 


364  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

to  make  it  clear  which  sort  of  spiritual  nurture 
produces  the  sturdiest  manhood.  It  turned 
Cromwell  and  his  Ironsides  into  standing  proofs 
for  all  time,  of  the  fact  that  conscious  personal 
intercourse  with  God,  without  the  intervention 
of  any  priest,  makes  men  invincible  against  sol- 
diers of  every  other  type.  And  the  recent  Span- 
ish-American war  served  to  show  that  liberty, 
learning  and  an  open  Bible  are  apt  to  produce 
better  navies,  than  are  priesthoods  that  frown  upon 
all  three.  Above  all,  war  emphasizes  the  fact  that 
men  are  essentially  noble,  because  they  are 
capable  of  such  devotion  to  a  cause  as  to  look 
upon  their  property  and  their  bodily  lives,  only 
as  things  that  can  be  staked  and,  if  need  be,  lost 
in  its  interests.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  either, 
that  some  good  things  have  been  reached  and 
some  evils  abated  by  means  of  the  bloody  strug- 
gles of  the  past.  Yet  no  one  would  think  for  one 
moment  of  righting  every  human  wrong,  much 
less  of  attaining  to  every  human  excellence  and 
good,  by  means  of  the  sword. 

War  inflicts  many  wrongs  always,  and  that 
often  without  actually  removing  one.  And  where 
it  comes  as  a  real  cure  for  some  great  ill,  it  is 
only  a  little  less  frightful  than  the  malady  it- 
self. The  sword  of  truth  alone,  as  it  comes  from 
Christ's  mouth  to  smite  iniquity  and  falsehood, 
wages  war  without  doing  real  harm  to  any. 
What  John  saw  was  that  the  King  of  Kings  and 
Lord  of  Lords  can  inflict  wrong  upon  none.  He 


JESUS  AND  NATIONAL  DESTINY     365 

knew  that  when  he  was  here  in  the  flesh,  he  re- 
jected the  physical  conquest  of  the  nations  as  a 
temptation  of  the  Devil.  And  probably  the  true 
doctrine  is  that  he  has  employed  human  wars  in 
the  interests  of  his  truth  at  any  time,  only  as  he 
used  for  the  furtherance  of  his  aims,  the  malice 
of  the  Jewish  rulers,  the  treachery  of  Judas  and 
the  sinful  weakness  of  Pilate,  which  brought 
about  his  crucifixion  on  Calvary.  He  is  far  be- 
yond our  power  of  comprehending  his  greatness, 
and  he  can  triumph  even  by  means  of  his  cruci- 
fixion. We  may  take  it  for  granted  that  phy- 
sical wars  will  wholly  cease,  and  come  to  be  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  frightful  features  of  a  past 
barbarism,  long  before  all  the  wrongs  of  our 
earth  are  righted.  Might  can  never  make  right 
and,  as  James  has  assured  us,  "Anger  in  man  does 
not  produce  the  righteousness  required  by  God." 

It  was  because  John  had  a  vision  of  the  things 
our  Lord  was  really  to  bring  about,  that  he  gave 
to  the  church  these  pictures.  Even  now  the  Par- 
liament, the  court,  the  school,  and  perhaps,  above 
all,  the  pulpit  which  proclaims  truth  and  right- 
eousness as  the  richest  gifts  God  has  to  bestow 
upon  men,  are  doing  nearly  all  that  is  being  ac- 
complished, outside  the  family,  towards  human 
deliverance,  uplifting  and  enjoyment.  And  John 
tells  us  in  the  twentieth  chapter  of  his  Revelation 
the  story  of  his  king's  victories  up  to  the  very 
last  of  them. 

Everything  he  saw  here  was  in  the  region  of 


366  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

spiritual  forces  and  facts.  "Then  I  saw  an  angel 
coming  down  from  heaven,  with  the  key  of  the 
bottomless  pit  and  a  great  chain  in  his  hand.  He 
seized  the  dragon,  the  primeval  serpent  (who  is 
the  'Devil'  or  'Satan')  and  bound  him  in  chains 
for  a  thousand  years.  He  flung  him  into  the 
bottomless  pit  and  locked  it,  and  set  his  seal  upon 
it ;  that  he  should  not  deceive  the  nations  any  more 
until  the  thousand  years  are  ended.  After  that 
he  must  be  let  loose  for  a  while. 

"Then  I  saw  thrones,  and  to  those  who  took 
their  seats  upon  them  authority  was  given  to  act 
as  judges.  And  I  saw  the  souls  of  those  who 
had  been  beheaded  because  of  the  testimony  to 
Jesus  and  because  of  the  message  of  God,  for 
they  had  refused  to  worship  the  beast  or  its  image 
and  had  not  received  the  brand  on  their  foreheads 
and  on  their  hands.  They  were  restored  to  life, 
and  they  reigned  with  the  Christ  a  thousand 
years." 

For  our  present  purpose  we  need  not  pretend 
to  know  precisely  what  this  restoration  to  life 
stood  for  in  the  mind  of  John,  nor  need  we  ven- 
ture a  guess  as  to  the  exact  time  of  the  begin- 
ning or  end  of  the  period  here  set  forth  as  a 
thousand  years;  but  the  vision  conveys  to  us  at 
least  the  message  that  our  Lord's  conquest  was 
to  be  signal,  and  that  those  who  had  been  serv- 
ing him  best  in  the  struggle,  would  live  again  in 
the  triumph  of  the  truth  for  which  they  had  laid 
down  their  lives. 


JESUS  AND  NATIONAL  DESTINY     367 

But  the  kinetoscope  continues  to  throw  its  mov- 
ing pictures  upon  the  screen  before  John's  eyes. 
He  sees  the  thousand  years  ended,  and  Satan  at 
liberty  once  more,  and  deceiving  "the  nations  that 
live  in  'the  four  corners  of  the  earth — Gog  and 
Magog.'  He  will  come  to  gather  them  together 
for  battle ;  and  their  number  will  be  as  great  as 
the  sand  upon  the  sea-shore.  They  went  up  over 
the  breadth  of  the  whole  earth,  and  surrounded 
the  camp  of  Christ's  people  and  the  beloved  city. 
Then  fire  fell  from  the  heavem  and  consumed 
them;  and  the  devil,  their  deceiver,  was  hurled  into 
the  lake  of  fire  and  sulphur,  where  the  Beast  and 
the  false  prophet  already  were,  and  they  will  be 
tortured  day  and  night  forever."  (Rev.  20.) 

This  whole  vision  belongs  to  the  world  of 
thought  and  spiritual  reality.  The  fire  from 
heaven  is  the  truth  of  God  all  aflame  and  con- 
suming every  false  thing  that  it  touches,  till  the 
Father  of  Lies  finds  himself  in  his  retreat  before 
it,  hurled  forever  from  the  world  of  men  that  he 
has  no  longer  any  power  to  deceive.  The  con- 
quests of  Christ  are  those  of  truth  and  holiness, 
and  they  are  in  the  New  Testament  represented  as 
continuing  till  the  last  vestiges  of  error  and  moral 
pollution  have  been  chased  from  our  earth. 

We  must  remember,  however,  that  all  this  is 
but  the  negative  side  of  the  saving  work  of  our 
Lord.  He  is  the  great  expeller  and  demolisher 
of  evil,  but  he  is  much  more  besides.  He  is  the 
great  builder  and  restorer.  He  roots  out  and 


368  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

burns  up  the  thorns  and  briers  of  the  wilderness, 
that  he  may  plant  the  cedar,  the  pine,  the  box, 
and  the  myrtle.  He  sends  his  streams  of  refresh- 
ing into  the  desert  places  where  nothing  would 
grow,  that  they  may  rejoice  and  blossom  as  the 
rose.  He  pulls  down  the  strongholds  of  evil  that 
he  may  build  in  their  places  the  impregnable 
fortresses  of  righteousness.  He  shakes  the  old 
earth  and  heaven  to  pieces,  that  a  heaven  and 
earth  that  cannot  be  shaken  may  appear  in  their 
stead,  and  abide  to  his  eternal  glory  and  praise. 


XXII 
JESUS   THE    COMPLETE    SAVIOR 

The  wish  of  those  Greek  visitors  to  Jerusalem 
to  see  Jesus  is  still  what  it  was  at  the  time  of 
Philip  and  Andrew,  an  event  of  striking  signifi- 
cance. But  more  striking  and  significant  yet  are 
the  things  which  Jesus  said  on  that  occasion,  and 
particularly  the  word  he  spoke  last. 

"Now  this  world  is  on  its  trial.  Now  the 
spirit  that  is  ruling1  this  world  shall  be  driven  out ; 
and  I,  when  I  am  lifted  up  from  the  earth  shall 
draw  all  men  to  myself.  By  these  words  he  indi- 
cated what  death  he  was  to  die."  (Jno.  12: 
31,  32.) 

Could  language  be  more  arresting  or  more  ex- 
plicit than  this  ?  Undoubtedly  our  Lord  was  here 
anticipating  and  foretelling  the  character  and  ex- 
tent of  his  conquests  upon  this  earth.  And  so 
far  was  his  cross  from  appearing  to  him  an  ob- 
stacle to  be  surmounted,  which  to  some  extent 
it  really  was  at  the  start,  that  he  boldly  put  it 
forward  as  his  throne  of  universal  judgment,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  instrument,  by  means  of 
which,  on  the  other  hand,  he  would  win  the  homage 
and  fealty  of  the  whole  human  family.  The  con- 
demnation and  final  expulsion  from  this  world, 
369 


370  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

not  only  of  sin,  but  also  of  the  very  principle 
or  being  who  introduced  it  and  has  fostered  it 
here,  is  one  part  of  our  Lord's  work  which  these 
words  describe.  This  work  is  destructive  in  its 
nature.  But  it  is  the  pulling  down  of  old  plague- 
infested  structures  that  a  palace  may  be  erected 
in  their  place,  or  the  clearing  and  draining  of  the 
fever-breeding  fen,  that  in  its  stead  there  may 
appear  one  after  another  smiling  fields  and  pas- 
tures for  flocks.  The  work  of  destruction  is  put 
first,  because  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  it  must 
go  first.  But  it  is  only  a  preparatory  work  after 
all.  Our  Lord's  greatest  work  is  constructive. 
The  thing  he  is  producing  greatly  surpasses  the 
things  he  is  destroying,  and  he  will  be  magnified 
at  last  as  the  maker  of  new  heavens  and  a  new 
earth,  and  adored  not  so  much  for  what  he  has 
saved  our  race  from,  as  for  what  he  has  saved 
it  to.  It  is  on  this  account  that  we  read  in  the 
fifth  chapter  of  Revelation — 

"And  when  he  had  taken  the  book,  the  four 
Creatures  and  the  twenty-four  Councilors 
prostrated  themselves  before  the  Lamb, 
each  of  them  holding  a  harp  and  golden 
bowls  full  of  incense.  (These  are  the  prayers  of 
Christ's  People.)  And  they  are  singing  a  new 
song — 

"  'Thou  art  worthy  to  take  the  book  and  break 
its  seals,  for  thou  wast  sacrificed,  and  with  thy 
blood  thou  didst  buy  for  God  men  of  every  tribe 
and  language  and  people  and  nation,  and  didst 


JESUS  THE  COMPLETE  SAVIOR     371 

make  them  a  kingdom  of  Priests  for  our  God  and 
they  are  reigning*  on  the  earth.'  ' 

The  Old  Testament  prophets  were  granted 
visions  of  this  far  off  yet  coming  glory.  Micah 
wrote — 

"But  in  the  latter  days  it  shall  come  to  pass 
that  the  mountain  of  the  Lord's  house  shall  be 
established  in  the  tops  of  the  mountains,  and  it 
shall  be  exalted  above  the  hills ;  and  peoples  shall 
flow  unto  it.  And  many  nations  shall  go  and 
say,  Come  ye,  and  let  us  go  up  to  the  mountain 
of  the  Lord,  and  to  the  house  of  the  God  of 
Jacob ;  and  he  will  teach  us  of  his  ways,  and  we 
will  walk  in  his  paths ;  for  out  of  Zion  shall  go 
forth  the  law  and  the  word  of  the  Lord  from  Jeru- 
salem. And  he  shall  judge  between  great 
peoples,  and  shall  decide  concerning  strong  na- 
tions afar  off:  and  they  shall  beat  their  swords 
into  plow-shares,  and  their  spears  into  pruning 
hooks ;  nation  shall  not  lift  up  sword  against  na- 
tion, neither  shall  they  learn  war  any  more.  But 
they  shall  sit  every  man  under  his  vine  and  his 
fig-tree;  and  none  shall  make  them  afraid;  for 
the  mouth  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts  hath  spoken  it." 
(Micah  4:1-4.) 

The  thing  pictured  here  is  no  less  than  the 
universal  reign,  first  in  righteousness  and  after- 
wards in  settled  peace,  of  the  God  of  Israel  over 
the  nations  of  mankind,  both  small  and  great. 

The  splendors  of  this  world-wide  glory  are  con- 
tinually bursting  upon  us  from  the  pages  of  the 


372  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

later  Isaiah,  in  connection  with  his  story  of  strug- 
gle and  suffering  and  disappointed  hopes  and 
apparently  unrequited  toils — 

"But  I  said,  I  have  labored  in  vain,  I  have  spent 
my  strength  for  nought,  and  in  vain;  yet  surely 
my  judgment  is  with  the  Lord,  and  my  recom- 
pense with  my  God.  And  now  saith  the  Lord  that 
formed  thee  from  the  womb  to  be  his  servant, 
It  is  too  light  a  thing  that  thou  shouldest 
be  my  servant  to  raise  up  the  tribes  of  Jacob, 
and  to  restore  the  preserved  of  Israel :  I  will  also 
give  thee  for  a  light  to  the  Gentiles,  that  thou 
mayest  be  my  salvation  to  the  end  of  the  earth." 
(Isa.  49:4-6.) 

The  suffering  servant  of  the  fifty-third  chapter 
is  bruised  and  grieved  and  slain  and  buried,  but 
he  is  at  the  same  time  the  victorious  and  prosper- 
ous one  who  sees  his  seed,  prolongs  his  days,  makes 
many  righteous  and  is  exalted  to  the  heights  of 
power.  In  connection  with  his  administration  a 
new  day  dawns  for  the  people,  God's  promise  of 
which  is  couched  in  such  terms  as  these: 

"For  brass  I  will  bring  gold,  and  for  iron  I 
will  bring  silver,  and  for  wood  brass,  and  for 
stones  iron:  and  I  will  also  make  thy  officers 
peace,  and  thy  task-masters  righteousness. 
Violence  shall  no  more  be  heard  in  thy  land,  des- 
olation nor  destruction  within  thy  borders;  but 
thou  shalt  call  thy  walls  salvation  and  thy  gates 
praise.  The  sun  shall  be  no  more  thy  light  by 
day;  neither  for  brightness  shall  the  moon  give 


JESUS  THE  COMPLETE  SAVIOR    373 

light  unto  thee;  but  the  Lord  shall  be  unto  thee 
an  everlasting  light  and  thy  God  thy  glory. 
Thy  sun  shall  no  more  go  down,  neither  shall  thy 
moon  withdraw  itself:  for  the  Lord  shall  be  thine 
everlasting  light  and  the  days  of  thy  mourning 
shall  be  ended.  Thy  people  also  shall  be  all  right- 
eous, they  shall  inherit  the  land  forever."  (Isa. 
60:17-21.) 

To  think  of  all  this  as  just  so  much  poetic 
hyperbole  from  the  ancient  East  will  scarcely  do. 
Poetic  it  is  and  boldly  figurative,  and  we  can  all 
agree  with  Peter  that  the  prophets  who  wrote  it 
could  only  keep  "searching  to  find  out  what  they 
could  about  the  time  to  which  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
within  them  was  pointing,  when  foretelling  the 
sufferings  which  would  befall  Christ  and  the 
glories  which  would  follow;  but  the  things  which 
it  brings  into  view  are  things  such  as  we  see 
about  and  above  us  now  in  their  earlier  unfold- 
ings,  and  things  which  the  coming  generations 
of  men  will  know  in  their  fuller  and  fullest  de- 
velopments. "For  the  new  heavens  and  the  new 
earth  which  I  will  make  shall  remain  before  me, 
saith  the  Lord."  (Isa.  66:22.) 

Passing  by  the  words  of  Amos,  which  were 
quoted  before  the  Jerusalem  Council,  to  show  that 
the  purpose  of  God  was  to  build  up  a  Christian 
Church  which  would  be  all-embracing;  and  Dan- 
iel's vision  of  the  stone  cut  out  of  the  mountain 
without  hands,  which  continued  rolling  till  it  filled 
the  whole  earth,  and  thus  represented  or  sym- 


374  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

bolized  the  kingdom  which  the  Lord  God  was  to 
set  up  and  maintain  forever;  we  may  glance  at  a 
passage  in  second  Peter  which  is  suggested  by  the 
words  quoted  from  the  closing  sentences  in 
Isaiah — 

"The  day  of  the  Lord  will  come  like  a  thief. 
And  on  that  day  the  heavens  will  pass  away  with 
a  crash,  the  elements  will  be  burned  up  and  dis- 
solved, and  the  earth  and  all  that  is  in  it  will 
be  disclosed.  Now  since  all  these  things  are  in 
the  process  of  dissolution,  think  what  you  your- 
selves ought  to  be, — what  holy  and  pious  lives 
you  ought  to  lead,  while  you  await  and  hasten  the 
coming  of  the  Day  of  God.  At  its  coming  the 
heavens  will  be  dissolved  in  fire  and  the  elements 
melted  by  heat,  but  we  look  for  'new  heavens  and 
a  new  earth,'  where  righteousness  shall  have  its 
home,  in  fulfillment  of  the  promise  of  God." 
(2nd  Peter  3:10-13.) 

By  "heavens"  in  this  passage  we  understand 
the  religious  conditions,  and  by  "earth"  the  social 
and  political  conditions  of  the  time,  near  the  year 
of  our  Lord  70,  when  it  was  written,  particularly 
as  these  existed  in  connection  with  Judaism.  Al- 
ready they  were  "in  the  process  of  dissolution" 
and  the  Christians  scattered  everywhere  were 
"helping  forward  the  coming  of  the  Day  of  God" 
by  preaching  Christ  to  all  nations  as  their  com- 
ing King, — the  Day  of  God  which  would  end  this 
"process"  and  bring  these  "heavens"  and  this 
"earth"  to  an  end  "with  a  crash,"  and  with  such 


JESUS  THE  COMPLETE  SAVIOR    375 

a  fire  as  would  reduce  the  whole  political  and 
religious  situation  to  its  original  elements. 
Peter's  interest  in  this  destructive  process  was  in- 
tense, for  he  had  the  promise  of  his  God  in  the 
last  chapter  of  Isaiah  that  he  would  make  out 
of  the  elements  of  the  old  heavens  and  old  earth 
"new  heavens  and  a  new  earth,  where  righteous- 
ness shall  have  its  home."  The  "fire"  of  the 
passage  is,  of  course,  figurative  fire.  The  thing 
which  the  passage  describes  is  the  breaking  up 
and  melting  of  the  peoples  of  the  earth,  beginning 
with  the  Jews,  preparatory  to  their  being  taken 
up,  all  of  them,  into  the  wo  rid- wide  religious, 
social  and  political  institutions  of  Christianity. 
The  burning  of  Rome,  which  Peter  perhaps  wit- 
nessed, may  have  suggested  the  figure,  or  it  may 
have  come  to  him  through  his  reading  of  the 
Old  Testament  prophets.  It  is  interesting  to 
note,  as  Farrar  does,  that  a  little  later,  both  the 
temple  of  Capitoline  Jupiter,  in  Rome,  represent- 
ing the  heathen  heavens,  and  the  temple  at  Jeru- 
salem, representing  the  heavens  of  the  Jew,  were 
burned  to  ashes  to  make  room  for  the  new. 

The  Twenty-first  chapter  of  Revelation  pre- 
sents the  case  from  the  same  standpoint.  Going 
on  through  it  and  into  the  next,  we  find  ourselves 
in  the  midst  of  imagery  supplied  by  Isaiah  and 
Ezekiel  and  used  by  them  to  describe  a  state  of 
earthly  blessedness  which  they  foresaw.  And 
when  we  look  closely  into  John's  words  for  his 
meaning,  the  only  possible  conclusion  we  can  ar- 


376  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

rive  at,  consistent  at  once  with  literary  principles 
and  common  sense,  is  that  he  is  setting  forth,  not 
the  glories  of  heaven  itself,  but  the  glories  of 
those  heavenly  conditions  which  are  to  be  estab- 
lished here  through  the  descent  of  the  divine  into 
our  human  affairs.  The  things  John  saw  were 
new  heavens  and  a  new  earth — a  new  earth  as 
well  as  new  heavens.  In  other  words  he  had  a 
vision  of  new  religious  and  social  (including  po- 
litical) conditions.  And  to  keep  us  from  mak- 
ing any  mistake  at  this  point,  he  goes  on  to  say 
that  he  saw  the  Holy  City,  New  Jerusalem,  com- 
ing down  from  God  out  of  heaven,  to  be  itself 
both  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth ;  and  he 
heard  a  great  voice,  not  out  of  the  New  Jerusalem, 
but  out  of  the  same  heaven  from  which  the  New 
Jerusalem  itself  was  descending,  saying  with  un- 
doubted reference  to  that  city — 

"The  tabernacle  of  God  is  set  up  among  men." 

Arid  when  we  have  reached  the  close  of  John's 

description    of   the   great   four-square   city,  with 

its  twelve  gates  of  pearl  that  are  never  shut,  we 

read — "The  nations  walk  by  the  light  of  it;  and 

the  kings  of  the  earth  bring  their  glory  into  it. 

And  men  will  bring  the  glory  and  honor 

of  the  nations  into  it." 

The  story  is  that  of  the  coming  of  God 
through  Christ  into  touch  with  us  men  and  our 
affairs,  and  the  glorious  results  which  are  even- 
tually to  be  brought  about  by  means  of  that  com- 
ing. The  work  being  accomplished  is  heavenly 


JESUS  THE  COMPLETE  SAVIOR    377 

and  divine,  but  the  scene  is  earthly  and  lies  in 
the  midst  of  our  religious  and  social  conditions. 

And  so,  losing  sight  now  of  Judaism,  the  frac- 
tion, and  finding  under  our  eyes,  instead,  the 
whole  vast  world  of  our  humanity,  the  one  true 
thing  for  us  to  say  is  this:  "The  former  heav- 
ens and  the  former  earth"  are  gradually  passing 
away,  and  "the  new  heavens"  and  "the  new  earth" 
are  gradually  taking  their  places,  and  by  and 
by  the  old  heavens  and  earth  will  all  be  gone,  and 
everything  here  will  be  new.  Or,  viewing  the 
great  transformation  from  the  standpoint  of 
John's  figure  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  the  day  is 
coming  when  all  earth's  peoples  shall  at  length 
find  themselves  within  its  gates  and  living  its  life 
of  full  and  glad  obedience  to  the  one  great  King 
of  all.  It  is  here  upon  the  earth  that  such  con- 
ditions are  to  be  established  as  will  forbid  the  en- 
trance of  "any  unhallowed  thing,"  and  of  "those 
whose  lives  are  shameful  and  false,"  and  will  bring 
it  about  that  this  planet  will  be  peopled  "only 
by  those  whose  names  have  been  written  in  the 
Lamb's  Book  of  Life." 

It  is  in  this  very  home  of  disease  and  death 
and  weeping  and  mourning  that  God  shall  wipe 
away  all  tears.  It  is  here  that  "there  shall  be 
no  more  death,  nor  will  there  be  any  more  grief 
or  crying  or  pain." 

And  John's  further  description  of  this  glori- 
ous city  of  his  vision  is  in  full  harmony  with 
this  view — 


378  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

"And  the  angel  showed  me  'a  river  of  the  water 
of  Life,'  as  clear  as  crystal  issuing  from  the 
throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb,  in  the  middle  of 
the  street  of  the  city.  On  each  side  of  the  river 
was  a  tree  of  life  which  bore  twelve  kinds  of 
fruit,  yielding  its  fruit  each  month;  and  the 
leaves  of  the  tree  were  for  the  healing  of  the 
nations.  'Everything  that  is  accursed  will  cease 
to  be.'  The  throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb  will 
be  within  it,  and  his  servants  will  worship  him; 
they  will  see  his  face,  and  his  name  will  be  on 
their  foreheads.  Night  will  cease  to  be.  They 
will  have  no  heed  of  the  light  of  a  lamp,  nor 
have  they  the  light  of  the  sun,  for  the  'Lord 
God  will  be  their  light,  and  they  will  reign  for 
ever  and  ever.'"  (Rev.  22:1-5.) 

Perfect  obedience,  unhindered  vision  of  God, 
the  full  assurance  of  faith,  complete  spiritual  il- 
lumination, and  the  abiding  possession  of  all  the 
fruits  of  the  finished  triumphs  of  all  the  redeem- 
ing years, — this  is  the  final  picture  of  John's 
painting.  No  wonder  that  after  the  vision  of 
coming  facts,  which  enabled  him  to  do  the  paint- 
ing, had  passed,  the  angel  said  to  him:  "Blessed 
will  he  be  who  lays  to  heart  the  words  of  the 
prophecy  contained  in  this  book,"  which  you  are 
writing,  for  it  is  at  once  the  most  glorious  and 
most  blessed  prophecy  that  human  lips  can  utter, 
or  pen  of  man  set  down. 

This  constructive  work  of  our  Lord,  like  the 
destructive,  is  the  task  and  toil  of  the  redeeming 


JESUS  THE  COMPLETE  SAVIOR    379 

ages.  Only  as  the  wrong  disappears  can  the 
right  take  its  place.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
right  is  always  waiting  for  the  wrong  to  make 
way  for  it.  It  is  true,  too,  that  as  there  is  a 
gradual  cleansing,  enlightenment  and  upbuilding 
of  the  individual  believer,  so  also  is  there  of 
the  church  as  a  whole;  for  her  progress  to- 
wards maturity  of  creed  and  life  is  one  of  slow 
stages. 

This  gradual  development  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  was  set  forth  by  our  Lord  himself  on  more 
than  one  occasion.  "First  the  blade,  then  the  ear 
and  then  the  full  grain  in  the  ear,"  are  words 
of  his.  So  also  are  the  parables  of  the  mustard 
seed,  and  of  the  "yeast  which  a  woman  took  and 
covered  up  in  three  pecks  of  flour,  until  the  whole 
had  risen."  (Matt.  13:33.)  Paul,  too,  had  it 
definitely  in  mind  when,  writing  to  the  Ephesians, 
he  said — 

"He  who  went  down  is  the  same  as  he  who  went 
up — up  beyond  the  highest  heaven,  that  he  might 
fill  all  things  with  his  presence.  And  he  it  is 
who  gave  to  the  Church  apostles,  prophets,  mis- 
sionaries, pastors  and  teachers  to  fit  his  people 
for  the  work  of  the  ministry,  for  the  building  up 
of  the  body  of  the  Christ.  And  this  shall  con- 
tinue, until  we  all  attain  to  that  unity  which  is 
given  by  faith  and  by  a  fuller  knowledge  of  the 
Son  of  God;  until  we  reach  the  ideal  man — the 
full  standard  of  the  perfection  of  the  Christ. 
Then  we  shall  no  longer  be  like  infants,  tossed 


380  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

backwards  and  forwards,  blown  about  by  every 
breath  of  human  teaching,  through  the  trickery 
and  craftiness  of  men,  towards  the  snares  of 
error;  but  holding  the  truth  in  a  spirit  of  love, 
we  shall  grow  into  complete  union  with  him  who 
is  our  head— Christ  Himself."  (Eph.  4:10-15.) 

How  definite  this  prophecy  is,  and  how  long 
the  vista  down  which  it  looks  so  bravely !  How 
very  much,  too,  still  remains  to  be  effected  before 
its  finished  fulfillment  can  be  announced!  But  is 
not  one>  of  the  blessed  movements  of  our  own  times 
directed  towards  the  healing  of  the  divisions 
which  have  all  along  existed  among  Christians, 
and  the  attainment  of  "that  unity  which  is  given 
by  faith  and  a  fuller  knowledge  of  the  Son  of 
God."  And  have  we  not  in  this  the  pledge  that 
the  whole  church  will  eventually  be  built  into  one 
grand  body,  "and  reach  the  ideal  man — the  full 
standard  of  the  perfection  of  the  Christ." 

If  we  really  need  any  further  assurances  of 
prophecy,  Paul  himself  gives  them  to  us  in  this 
same  letter — 

"The  Christ  loved  the  Church,  and  gave  him- 
self for  her,  to  makef  her  holy,  after  purifying  her 
by  the  Washing  with  the  Water,  according  to 
his  promise;  so  that  he  might  himself  bring  the 
Church,  in  all  her  beauty,  into  his  own  presence, 
with  no  spot  or  wrinkle  or  blemish  of  any  kind, 
but  that  she  might  be  holy  and  faultless."  (Eph. 
5:26,  27.) 

Paul  was  like  John.     He  had  the  vision  of  a 


JESUS  THE  COMPLETE  SAVIOR    381 

Church  perfected  and  rendered  faultless  by  her 
Savior  here  upon  the  earth. 

Associated  most  closely  with  this  idea  of  the 
Church's  perfection  is  that  of  her  universality. 
And  our  study  of  the  New  Testament  regarding 
the  utter  extinction  of  evil-doers,  and  the  final 
banishment  of  Satan  himself  from  the  earth,  has 
already  made  this  universality  a  necessity  of 
thought  for  us.  When  all  the  enemies  of  "the 
camp  of  Christ's  people  and  the  beloved  city" 
have  been  either  consumed  or1  banished,  the  Church 
must  in  the  very  nature  of  things  find  herself  in 
full  possession.  Consequently  Paul  has  furnished 
us  with  a  picture  of  things  as  they  will  appear 
when  the  redemption  of  our  race  is  at  length  an 
accomplished  fact.  The  picture  is  not  complete, 
but  it  portrays  a  scene  which  is  to  characterize 
our  Lord's  final,  as  distinguished  from  his  second 
coming — his  coming  at  the  close  of  the  Chris- 
tian age  as  distinguished  from  that  coming  of 
his  at  the  close  of  the  Mosaic  era,  to  which  we 
have  already  given  attention. 

The  resurrection  of  those  who  were  his  has 
taken  place.  God  has  at  long  last,  as  we  would 
say,  put  all  his  enemies  under  his  feet,  including 
the  last  enemy,  death.  "And,  when  everything 
has  been,  placed  under  him,  the  Son  will  place  him- 
self under  God  who  placed  everything  under  him, 
that  God  may  be  all  in  all." 

The  scene  which  this  picture  represents  is  one 
of  such  infinite  dimensions  that  we  cannot  hope  to 


382  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

take  it  all  in,  but  this  much  at  least  may  be 
clearly  made  out.  Christ  became  man  for  the 
special  work  of  bringing  our  race  back  to  God, 
and  when  that  work  is  fully  done,  he  will  in  his 
humanity  retire  from  view  and  leave  the  race 
to  enjoy  God  as  pure  spirit,  apart  from  every 
thought  of  his  human  mediation,  excepting  as 
that  mediation  must  be  forever  held  in  the  ador- 
ing memory  of  all  those  who  shall  have  called 
him  Savior. 

Let  us  again  ask  what  the  two  pictures  were 
which  the  Holy  Spirit  hung  in  the  gallery  of 
Paul's  sanctified  intellect  and  imagination,  to 
represent  the  earthly  condition  of  our  race  as 
redeemed,  and  which  he  in  turn  hung  in  the  gal- 
lery of  New  Testament  literature  for  the  grate- 
ful believing  study  of  all  the  generations  that  were 
to  succeed  him.  We  may  first  look  at  them  sep- 
arately, and  afterwards  in  combination. 

Here  is  the  first.  Christ  having  done  his  whole 
work  hands  over  the  kingdom  of  mankind  to  God, 
who  becomes  "all  in  all," — Lawgiver,  Teacher, 
Satisfier  of  every  need  of  his  children.  I 

And  here  is  the  second.  Let  us  examine  it 
carefully.  It  is  not  a  picture  of  man  freed  from 
his  association  with  nature,  or  nature  freed  from 
its  association  with  man,  because  that  associa- 
tion could  never  be  made  mutually  helpful  to  them 
in  the  highest  way.  On  the  contrary,  this  picture 
is  that  of  nature  rejoicing  in  the  presence  of  man, 
and  man  rejoicing  in  the  presence  of  nature,  be- 


JESUS  THE  COMPLETE  SAVIOR    383 

cause  they  have  together  been  delivered  from  the 
very  last  consequences  of  sin,  including  their  long 
"enslavement  to  decay,"  and  been  placed,  each  of 
them,  upon  the  highway  leading  to  its  own  true 
goal. 

And  what  do  these  two  pictures,  placed  side  by 
side,  show  us  ?  Man  at  home  in  the  bosom  of  God, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  at  home  in  a  blissful  and 
blissgiving  headship  of  nature,  is  their  splendid 
revelation.  Man  was  made  for  God,  and  nature 
was  made  for  man,  and  when  Christ's  redeeming 
work  is  done,  both  God  and  man  will  be  found 
gloriously  possessed  of  their  full  rights. 

In  fine,  the  divinely  inspired  apostles  who  dealt 
with  this  theme,  regarded  the  full  development 
and  manifestation  of  God's  children  as  the 

— "     .     .     one  far  off  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

To  their  minds  the  race  when  fully  redeemed, 
was  not  to  be  represented  so  much  by  those  who 
were  soon  to  be  raised  from  the  dead  and  in- 
troduced to  the  full  glories  of  heaven,  as  by  those 
who  were  to  have  their  home  here,  and  were  even- 
tually to  be  lifted  above  the  power  of  sin,  and 
disease  and  death ;  every  man,  woman  and  child 
of  them  thereafter  walking  with  God  perfectly, 
and  each  in  turn  passing  through  that  experience, 
corresponding  to  the  resurrection  which  Paul  de- 
scribed by  the  word  "change." 

This  final   age  of  human  history  will  be  that 


384  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

of  the  divine  Father  and  his  children,  and  will 
endure,  like  those  which  preceded  it,  throughout 
the  whole  period  assigned  from  the  beginning  by 
the  wisdom  and  will  of  the  loving  Father  Himself. 

In  bringing  this  chapter  to  a  close  we  may  re- 
mark that  we  are  still  living  in  the  presence  of 
the  Judge  of  all  the  nations  and  the  Savior  of 
all  men,  who  with  his  human  lips  proclaimed — 

"Now  this  world  is  on  its  trial.  Now  the  spirit 
that  is  ruling  this  world  shall  be  driven  out;  and 
I,  when  I  am  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  shall  draw 
all  men  to  myself." 

We  are  in  his  presence  who  taught  his  followers 
that  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  its  temple 
would  be  the  token  that  he  had  entered  into  human 
affairs,  to  remove  every  hindrance  to  the  right 
worship  of  God,  and  the  highest  service  men  owe 
to  each  other. 

We  find  ourselves  here  again  after  such  an  ex- 
amination of  the  scriptures  as  makes  it  easier  for 
us  to  understand  the  holy  joy  with  which  this  awful 
catastrophe  was  hailed  by  the  very  choicest  saints 
of!  human  history,  up  to  that  time  at  least.  They 
rejoiced  because  it  was  given  them  to  see  that  the 
casting  away  of  impenitent  Israel  was  the  recon- 
ciling of  the  world ;  that  the  shaking  to  pieces  of 
the  old  faulty  heavens  and  earth  was  to  make 
room  for  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth!  that  noth- 
ing could  shatter;  or  that  the  breaking  up  and 
melting  of  the  old  heavens  and  earth  was  for 
the  purpose  of  having  the  resultant  liquid  mass 


JESUS  THE  COMPLETE  SAVIOR    385 

crystalized  into  "new  heavens  and  a  new  earth, 
where  righteouness  shall  have  its  home.""  They 
rejoiced,  in  short,  because  they  were  divinely  as- 
sured that  the  utter  breaking  up  of  the  Jewish 
people  as  opposers  of  Christ,  would  be  a  very  dis- 
tinct clearing  of  the  ground  for  our  Lord's  great 
work  of  redeeming  the  race.  And  they  rejoiced 
greatly  because  they  saw  that  this  redemption 
would  be  complete,  that  the  race  would  in  reality, 
as  well  as  in  the  divine  purpose,  be  bought  back 
from  all  its  sins  and  sufferings,  and  raised  to 
all  the  heights  of  holiness  and  happiness  possible 
here  upon  the  earth. 

They  saw  that  before  the  work  was  accom- 
plished, every  foe  of  goodness,  including  the 
"primeval  Serpent"  himself,  would  be  finally  ban- 
ished from  our  earth,  thus  leaving  "Christ's  Peo- 
ple" in  sole  possession.  They  saw  Christ's  people 
themselves  led  up  to  "that  unity  which  is  given 
by  faith  and  by  a  fuller  knowledge  of  the  Son 
of  God,  and  the  perfection  of  manhood  and  that 
degree  of  development  of  which  the  ideal  to  be 
found  in  Christ  is  the  standard."  In  other  words, 
they  saw  Christ  "bring  the  Church,  in  all  her 
beauty,  into  his  own  presence  with  no  spot  or 
wrinkle  or  blemish  of  any  kind,  but  that  she 
might  be  holy  and  faultless." 

When  they  viewed  mankind  in  the  fullness  of 
the  new  Life,  they  saw  the  "holy  city"  and  the 
Lord  God,  the  Almighty,  and  the  Lamb,  as  its 
temple  and  its  illuminators.  And  as  they  gazed 


386  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

they  saw  the  nations  walk  by  the  light  of  it,  and  the 
kings  of  the  earth  bring  their  glory  into  it,  accom- 
panied by  the  glory  and  honor  of  the  nations 
themselves.  And  as  they  looked  forward  with 
the  individual  and  social  life  of  the  race  in  mind, 
they  exclaimed — 

"There  will  be  no  more  death,  neither  will  there 
be  any  more  grief  or  crying  or  pain.  The  old 
order  has  passed  away." 

And  they  knew  that  this  very  planet,  on  which 
the  first  Adam  fell  and  the  second  Adam  tri- 
umphed, was  to  be  the  scene  of  all  this  glorious 
transformation. 

Did  they  believe  that  all  they  described  would 
be  literally  brought  about?  We  may  at  least 
be  sure  that  they  believed  in  Eden,  and  its  sinless 
unsuffering  condition,  and  in  Christ  as  the  tri- 
umphant Savior,  who  would  make  all  as  well  with 
the  race  here,  as  it  would  have  been  if  Adam  had 
not  fallen  at  the  first.  What  that  is  painful 
would  the  race  unf alien  have  escaped?  From  all 
that  they  believed  it  would  be  completely  rescued. 
What  that  is  holy  and  high  would  it  have  at- 
tained here?  Into  all  that  they  believed  their 
Lord  would  fully  save  it. 

Does  this  seem  impossible?  The  true  answer 
is  that  God's  long  processes  have  never  yet  mis- 
carried in  their  execution.  Peter  declared  that 
to  the  Lord  a  thousand  years  are  like  one  day. 
This  being  so  we  may  consider  ourselves,  from 
the  apostolic  point  of  view,  as  only  near  the  close 


JESUS  THE  COMPLETE  SAVIOR    387 

of  the  second  day  of  his  year  of  grace.  And  he 
has  accomplished  much  already.  What  then  may 
he  not  effect  in  the  remaining  three  hundred  and 
sixty-three  days  of  that  year? 


XXIII 
CONCLUSION 

We  have  now  reviewed  the  Christian  scheme  of 
redemption  as  it  unfolded  itself  before  the  apos- 
tolic mind.  From  beginning  to  end  it  is  an 
eschatology — a  science  of  the  last  things.  These 
apostolic  Christians  had  witnessed  and  were  wit- 
nessing the  inauguration  of  the  final  instrumen- 
talities and  processes  connected  with  the  divine 
redemption  of  our  race.  The  patriarchal  dis- 
pensation had  given  way  to  the  ethnic  religions, 
and  these  were  now  to  be  gloriously  fulfilled  in  a 
religion  as  wide  as  mankind  and  great  and  per- 
fect like  the  heart  of  God  himself. 

The  instrumentalities  were  equal  to  the  task  pro- 
posed. First  among  them  was  the  Second  Per- 
son in  the  Trinity,  who  had  become  a  perfect  man, 
and,  as  such,  had  gone  to  the  cross  in  proof  of 
that  infinite  love  which  had  sent  and  brought  him 
to  earth,  and  for  the  purpose  of  drawing  all  men 
to  himself.  To  Him,  on  this  account,  had  been 
given  "the  name  which  stands  above  all  other 
names,  so  that  in  adoration  of  the  name  of  Jesus 
every  knee  should  bend  in  heaven,  on  earth,  and 
under  the  earth,  and  that  every  tongue  should 
acknowledge  Jesus  Christ  as  Lord  to  the  glory 


CONCLUSION  389 

of  God  the  Father."  (Phil.  2:10,  11.)  He  had 
been  clothed  with  all  authority  as  King  and  Judge, 
that  he  might  condemn,  overthrow  and  drive  out 
all  his  opposers.  He  had  also  been  made  the 
perfect  High  Priest  of  the  race,  that  he  might 
be  "able  to  save  perfectly  those  who  come  to  God 
through  him,  living  forever,  as  he  does,  to  in- 
tercede on  their  behalf."  (Heb.  7:25.)  He  was 
perfect  as  a  lawgiver,  perfect  as  an  example,  per- 
fect as  an  inspiration,  perfect  as  a  deliverer,  and 
perfect  as  a  restorer  and  upbuilder;  and  they  be- 
lieved he  would,  therefore,  certainly  "make  all 
things  new."  (Rev.  21 :5.) 

Associated  with  him  were  angels,  and  "are  not 
all  the  angels  spirits  in  the  service  of  God,  sent 
out  to  minister  for  the  sake  of  those  who  are  to 
obtain  Salvation?"  (Heb.  1:14.)  Joined  with 
him,  also,  as  his  servants  in  his  work,  were  his 
people,  to  whom  he  had  entrusted  various  powers 
and  duties,  making  them,  like  himself,  "God's  fel- 
low-workers." (2  Cor.  6:1.)  Associated  with 
him,  too,  was  the  Third  Person  in  the  Trinity, 
the  Holy  Spirit,  now  to  be  known  as  the  "Spirit 
of  Christ"  as  well  as  the  Spirit  of  God.  (1  Pet. 
1:11.)  The  bringer  of  "conviction  to  the  world 
as  to  Sin  and  as  to  Righteousness,  and  as  to 
Judgment"  (Jno.  16:8,  13;  14:25,  26),  he  was 
also  "the  Spirit  of  Truth"  who  was  to  "guide  into 
all  truth,"  and  be  "the  Helper"  of  Christ's  people 
in  all  things. 

Finally,  the  apostles  knew  "the  God  and  Father 


390  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

of  all — the  God  who  is  over  all,  pervades  all  and 
is  in  all."  (Eph.  4:6.)  They  knew  the  great 
redemptive  purpose,  plan  and  undertaking  to  be 
pre-eminently  His,  and  that  He  had  determined 
to  bring  our  Race  to  its  highest  possible  per- 
fection under  the  rule  of  His  Son,  as  "The  First- 
born from  the  dead"  (Col.  1 :18)  and  his  own  "ap- 
pointed heir  of  all  things."  (Heb.  1 :2.) 

They  were  satisfied  that  the  great  work  in  which 
they  were  privileged  to  engage  was  moral  and 
spiritual  in  its  nature,  and  that  its  aims  were 
wide  enough  to  take  in  every  proper  human 
activity.  They  did  not  look  for  the  spectacular  or 
the  material  excepting  as  these  were  supplied  in 
connection  with  wars  and  political  overthrows  that 
would  necessarily  be  looked  upon  as  represent- 
ing their  Lord's  coming  "from  heaven  with  his 
mighty  angels  'in  flaming  fire'  to  inflict  punish- 
ment upon  those  who  refuse  to  know  God  and 
upon  those  who  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  Good  News 
of  Jesus,  our  Lord"  (2  Thess.  1 :7-8)  ;  and  they 
confidently  expected  that  the  displays  of  this 
sort,  which  they  themselves  were  looking  for, 
would  take  place,  as  their  Lord  had  taught,  be- 
fore some  of  their  number  would  be  called  to  their 
rest. 

They  had  not  forgotten  the  words  of  their 
instructor — "The  kingdom  of  God  does  not  come 
in  a  way  that  admits  of  observation,  nor  will 
people  say,  'Look,  here  it  is' !  or  'There  it  is !' 
for,  mark  me,  the  kingdom  of  God  is  already 


CONCLUSION  391 


among  you"  (Luke  17:20,  21)  ;  and  wherever  the 
king  is  with  his  loyal  subjects  there  is  the  king- 
dom. You  might  therefore  turn  about  at  this 
moment  and  look  upon  it  if  you  would.  So  said 
Jesus  to  the  Pharisees.  And  he  told  them  very 
plainly  what  they  would  find  the  kingdom  like, 
as  the  time  passed  and  the  King  went  on  with  his 
work  of  judging  men  —  and  particularly  his  work 
of  judging  them.  The  events  would  be  spectacu- 
lar enough,  and  as  full  of  deliverance  and  holy 
triumph  for  all  faithful  subjects  and  servants 
of  his,  as  of  disaster  and  woe  for  those  of  them 
who  proved  rebellious.  It  would  be  soon  seen 
that  all  peoples  were  under  his  scepter,  and  that 
as  he  had  dealt  with  the  one  to  which  he  first 
came,  so  he  would  deal  with  all  the  rest,  till  his 
laws  were  everywhere  welcomed  and  obeyed,  and 
his  person  regarded  with  the  deepest  reverence 
and  love  wherever  men  were  found.  An  era 
would  pass  before  all  was  done,  but  that  genera- 
tion would  not  pass  before  it  would  become  most 
strikingly  evident  that  he  was  the  very  Judge 
of  men  he  had  declared  himself  to  be.  This 
revelation  of  himself  he  called  "the  coming  of  the 
Son  of  Man"  (Matt.  24:27,  37,  39),  and  re- 
marked to  Peter  about  John  with  reference  to  it 
at  the  time  of  that  very  memorable  meeting  by 
the  Galilean  Sea  after  his  resurrection  —  "If  it 
is  my  will  that  he  should  wait  till  I  come,  what 
has  that  to  do  with  you?"  (Jno.  21:22,  23.) 
As  usual  the  disciples,  not  yet  spiritually  enlight- 


392  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

ened,  began  to  talk  of  John  as  having  been  prom- 
ised exemption  from  death ;  in  view  of  which  John 
himself  very  naively  wrote — "Jesus  did  not  say 
that  that  disciple  was  not  to  die,  but  said,  if  it 
is  my  will  that  he  should  wait  till  I  come,  what 
has  that  to  do  with  you?"  In  point  of  fact,  all 
took  place  as  Jesus  had  indicated.  Peter's  "tent" 
was  put  away  as  his  Master  Himself  had  assured 
him  it  would  be,  and  John  waited  till  the  "com- 
ing" and  long  afterwards,  loving  and  serving. 
( Jno.  21 :18;  2  Pet.  1 :13,  14.)  How  touching  in 
the  light  of  this  is  his  "Amen,  come  Lord  Jesus," 
which  we  have  already  pointed  out  as  almost  the 
last  word  of  Revelation — the  book  he  wrote  when 
his  Lord  was  in  the  very  act  of  manifesting  him- 
self as  the  Judge  of  men. 

It  will  not  be  contended  by;  many  that  the  apos- 
tles of  our  Lord  and  the  spiritually  minded  mem- 
bers of  the  churches  in  their  day,  did  not  enter- 
tain these  great  hopes  and  expectations.  What 
has  been  claimed  is  that  those  men  were  mis- 
taken, and  that  Paul,  in  particular,  perceived  his 
early  blunder  and  corrected  it.  We  have  seen, 
however,  that  so  far  was  this  from  having  been 
really  the  case,  that  Paul  actually  fortified  his 
first  position,  and  proceeded  to  the  development 
and  elaboration  of  his  doctrine  of  the  resurrec- 
tion, until  he  viewed  that  initial  event  as  the  open- 
ing of  such  a  door  to  life  as  must  in  the  end 
make  it  the  complete  annihilator  of  disease  and 
death  on  this  planet,  not  on  the  behalf  of  man 


CONCLUSION  393 

alone,  but  also  of  all  "nature"  besides.  And  if 
we  take  the  ground  that  these  inspired  writers  of 
the  New  Testament  were  mistaken  in  regard  to 
these  matters,  whether  they  ever  came  to  know 
it  or  not,  we  must  be  prepared  to  go  even  further 
and  claim  that  Jesus  himself  taught  in  such  a 
manner  as  made  it  impossible  for  them  to  reach 
any  other  conclusions  than  those  which  they  ad- 
vanced with  such  perfect  confidence.  We  must 
remember,  too,  that  it  was  not  the  men  of  leaden 
intellect  and  low  and  groveling  desires,  nor  the 
dreamy,  impracticable  visionaries  of  the  period, 
whose  most  cherished  anticipations  we  have  been 
dealing  with.  Paul  and  John  and  James  and 
Peter  were  men  of  great  acumen.  They  were 
also  men  of  action,  who  touched  life  at  almost 
every  point  in  the  most  practical  fashion.  Next 
to  Christ  Himself  they  were  the  very  creators 
of  the  church,  and  thus,  in  the  long  run,  the 
molders  of  the  thought  and  life  of  our  whole 
race. 

It  is  certainly  time  we  parted  forever  with 
the  ambition  to  pose  as  the  wise  correctors 
of  Christ  and  his  apostles.  Our  inspiration  is 
too  poor  for  a  task  of  such  dimensions.  Our 
highest  place  here  is  that  of  humble  interpreters 
who  tremblingly  desire  sufficient  insight  to  per- 
ceive clearly  the  precise  contents  of  the  revela- 
tion which  God  gave  to  the  world  by  means  of 
these  men,  and  powers  of  expression  sufficiently 
ample  to  enable  us  to  set  forth  what  we  are  thus 


394  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

given  to  see,  in  such  a  way  that  we  shall  not 
darken  the  divine  counsel  with  our  poor  human 
speech. 

There  are,  however,  several  quite  legitimate 
questions  which  are  likely  to  be  asked  in  view  of 
all  that  has  been  put  forth  in  the  preceding 
pages.  The  first  of  them  is  this.  If  Paul  really 
believed  in  all  these  things, — if  he  really  believed 
that  our  Lord  was  coming  as  Judge  in  connection 
with  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  that  the  resur- 
rection of  the  righteous  dead,  at  least,  would  take 
place  then,  and  that  all  the  righteous  then  living, 
and  their  successors  through  generation  after 
generation,  would  put  on  spiritual  bodies  while 
they  were  still  living  in  the  flesh,  till  at  length 
a  painless  and  blissful  absorption  of  the  "animal" 
by  the  "spiritual"  would,  in  a  world  that  will 
have  become  wholly  righteous  at  last,  bring  to  an 
end  the  long  and  horrible  reign  of  disease  and 
death;  how  did  it  come  to  pass  that  practically 
no  trace  of  this  creed  of  his  is  to  be  found  in 
Christian  literature  outside  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment itself? 

To  ask  still  another  question,  why  is  it  that  in 
the  first  letter  of  John  we  find  what  looks  like 
a  virtual  denial  of  the  doctrine  that  Christ  came 
as  Judge  at  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem?  For 
was  not  this  letter  written  after  that  event? 
And  does  not  John  state  that  many  anti-Christs 
had  risen  already,  and  that  the  days  in  which  he 
was  writing  were  "the  last  days,"  or  the  days  im- 


CONCLUSION  395 

mediately  preceding  the  revelation  of  the  Judge? 
(1  Jno.  2:18.) 

Dealing  now  with  the  latter  question  first,  we 
may  say  at  once  that  no  one  knows  when  the 
first  letter  of  John  was  written.  Some  favor 
the  year  85  or  later  as  the  probable  date,  but 
there  is  certainly  nothing  very  definite  about  such 
a  claim  as  that.  The  Twentieth  Century  re- 
visers say — "It  is  probable  that  it  was  written 
after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  at  a  time  when 
the  second  coming  of  Christ  appeared  to  be  im- 
minent." They  further  say  that  "it  was  prob- 
ably written  at  Ephesus  after  70  A.  D."  And 
they  cite  the  passage  to  which  I  have  referred  in 
proof  of  their  view.  In  their  version  the  pas- 
sage reads  thus: — 

"My  children,  these  are  the  last  days.  You 
were  told  that  anti-Christ  was  coming  and  many 
anti-Christs  have  already  arisen.  By  that  we 
know  that  these  are  the  last  days." 

In  what  way  these  words  support  the  conten- 
tion that  the  letter  was  written  "after  70  A.  D.," 
rather  than  during  70,  let  us  say,  they  do  not 
even  hint.  Did  our  Lord's  prediction  that  there 
would  be  false  Christs  before  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  find  no  fulfillment?  Or  was  it  his  pre- 
diction of  his  own  coming  in  connection  with  that 
event  that  our  revisers  doubted  the  fulfillment  of? 
As  to  the  latter  we  have  seen  how  definitely  our 
Lord  came  both  as  Savior  and  Judge  within  the 
life-time  of  the  generation  to  which  he  himself 


396  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

had  ministered  while  in  the  flesh,  and  how  he  came 
to  abide  till  his  work  was  done. 

In  point  of  fact  the  New  Testament  presents 
three  of  these  "Comings"  of  Christ.  For  besides 
his  coming  as  spiritual  Savior  and  his  coming 
as  Royal  Judge,  which  we  have  already  looked 
into  with  as  much  care  as  we  could,  there  is  still 
another  referred  to  by  John  in  the  third  chapter 
of  his  first  letter,  where  he  writes  of  being  like 
Christ  through  seeing  "him  as  he  really  is." 
(1  Jno.  3:2.)  Each  coming,  must,  as  we  have 
seen,  be  considered  as  a  revelation,  and  this  com- 
ing is  our  Lord's  revelation  of  Himself  as  the 
Exemplar  and  Transformer  of  his  people.  Their 
supreme  difficulty  is  that  of  comprehending  him 
in  his  moral  and  spiritual  perfections,  and  this 
is  at  the  same  time  their  supreme  spiritual  neces- 
sity. They  are  changed  into  his  image  from 
glory  to  glory,  not  all  at  once,  nor  all  in  one  or 
even  a  hundred  generations,  but  only  as  they  can 
intelligently  grasp  and  appreciate  the  things 
of  which  that  glory  is  made  up.  He  is  revealed 
to  them,  or  comes  to  them,  only  gradually  and 
slowly,  therefore,  as  exemplar  and  transformer 
or  renewer.  And  this  is  just  as  true  of  his  other 
comings  or  revelations.  He  only  began  to  be 
revealed  as  the  spiritual  Savior  of  men  at  Pente- 
cost, and  as  Royal  Judge  in  connection  with  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem.  He  cannot  stand  out 
with  perfect  clearness  in  any  respect  before  men's 
eyes  till  all  his  work  is  done.  Their  eyes  will 


CONCLUSION  397 

not  be  fully  purged  till  then,  nor  will  he  himself 
be  all  disclosed.  This  was  well  understood  by 
Paul,  for  he  wrote  of  seeing  "the  glory  of  the 
Lord"  only  "as  if  reflected  in  a  mirror."  He 
had  written  before — 

"As  yet  we  see  in  a  mirror  dimly,  but  then — 
face  to  face.  As  yet  my  knowledge  is  incom- 
plete, but  then  I  shall  know  in  full,  as  I  have  been 
fully  known."  (1  Cor.  13:12.)  And  years 
afterwards,  he  wrote  again,  "My  aim  is  to  get 
to  know  Christ"  (Phil.  3:10,  Tentative  version 
T.  C.  N.  T.)  till  he  stands  sufficiently  revealed 
before  my  eyes  to  make  it  possible  for  me  to 
"grow  like  him  in  his  death,"  and  "attain  to  the 
resurrection  from  the  dead"  which  was  his. 

Those  will  do  well  to  remember  these  facts, 
who,  in  view  of  the  teaching  of  this  volume,  have 
begun  to  wonder  if  Paul  would  not  now  look  upon 
the  Lord's  Supper  as  an  out-of-date  institution, 
since  according  to  his  own  word  it  was  a  pro- 
claiming of  "the  Lord's  death — till  He  comes." 

John  saw  the  New  Jerusalem  coming  down 
from  God  out  of  Heaven.  It  had  not  all  come, 
nor  has  it  all  come  yet.  We  see  it  coming  still. 
Our  Lord's  comings  or  revelations  continue,  and 
will  do  so  till  all  his  holy  life  has  entered  into 
our  humanity  and  made  it,  also,  both  holy  and 
deathless. 

On  the  matter  of  the  Antichrists,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  can  do  no  better,  perhaps,  than  quote 
some  exceedingly  sane  words  from  Farrar's 


398  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

"Early  Days  of  Christianity" — "The  word  an- 
tichrist, which  St.  John  alone  uses,  may  mean 
either  'Rivals  of  Christ — i.  e.,  pseudo-Christs 
(Matt.  24:5,  11),  or  enemies  of  Christ';  either 
those  who  try  to  pass  themselves  off  as  Christ 
or  those  who  set  themselves  in  open  array  against 
him.  An  Antichrist  may  take  the  semblance  of 
a  Nero  or  of  a  Simon  Magus,  of  a  Priest  or  of 
a  Voltaire.  St.  John  enters  into  no  details  be- 
cause his  readers  had  already  heard  that  anti- 
christ cometh.  This  must  refer  to  his  own  oral 
teachings,  or  those  of  other  apostles,  for  he  tells 
us  afterwards  that  by  'Antichrists'  he  means 
those  who  deny  the  incarnation  (4*:3)  or  who 
deny  the  Father  and  the  Son  (2:22).  This  form 
of  Antichrist  is  not  described  either  by  Daniel, 
or  by  St.  Paul  in  his  Man  of  Sin.  If,  in  2  Thess. 
3 :4<,  the  expression  of  St.  Paul  may  admit  of  some 
sort  of  analogous  interpretation,  it  certainly 
could  not  have  been  assumed  by  St.  Paul  that  the 
brief  letter  to  a  Macedonian  Church  would  have 
already  pervaded  the  whole  of  Asia. 

"Nevertheless,  the  prevalence  of  these  Anti- 
christs, of  whom  St.  John  had  orally  spoken,  was 
the  direct  fulfillment  of  the  weeping  prophecy  of 
St.  Paul  in  his  farewell  to  the  Ephesian  Elders, 
'that  after  his  departure  grievous  wolves  would 
enter  among  them,  not  sparing  the  flock,  and  that 
from  among  their  own  selves  men  would  arise 
speaking  perverted  things  to  drag  away  disciples 
after  them.'  The  very  danger  to  the  Churdh 


CONCLUSION  399 

lay  in  the  fact  that  this  Antichristian  teaching 
arose  out  of  her  own  bosom.  The  Antichrists 
did  not  openly  apostatize  from  the  Christian 
body;  they  corrupted  it  from  within.  They  still 
called  themselves  Christians ;  had  they  really  been 
so,  they  would  have  continued  to  be  so.  But 
their  present  apostasy  was  a  manifestation  of 
the  fact  that  they  never  had  been  true  Christians, 
and  that  not  all  who  called  themselves  Christians, 
are  such  in  reality." 

It  may  be  noted,  too,  that  the  words,  "these 
are  the  last  days,"  are  by  no  means  a  literal 
translation.  They  only  represent  what  the  re- 
visers believed  to  be  the  true  sense.  Such  de- 
partures from  literal  renderings  must  often  be 
made  if  the  sense  is  to  be  clearly  stated  for  the 
reader  of  English,  but  they  represent,  at  the  same 
time,  a  kind  of  work  in  which  every  prepossession 
will  obtrude  itself,  and  in  which  translations  are 
only  too  apt  to  degenerate  into  mere  glosses. 
Let  us  take  an  instance  which  will  illustrate  this 
fact. 

When  these  revisers  changed  the  literal  "bap- 
tized into  Christ"  and  "baptized  into  Moses"  so 
as  to  make  them  read,  in  one  case,  "baptized  into 
union  with  Christ,"  and  in  the  other,  "underwent 
baptism  as  followers  of  Moses,"  it  is  very  doubt- 
ful whether  they  did  not  wholly  miss  the  idea 
which  was  in  the  apostle's  mind.  (Gal.  3:27; 
Rom.  6:3  and  1  Cor.  10:2.)  Indeed  it  seems  per- 
fectly clear  that  they  did.  For  in  their  tenta- 


400  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

tive  version,  they  rendered  the  one  passage  which 
sets  forth  that  idea  unmistakably,  so  as  to  cover 
it  up  altogether.  We  refer  to  2  Cor.  12:13, 
which  they  translated,  or  rather,  paraphrased 
thus: — "It  was  through  one  spirit,  and  to  form 
one  Body,  that  we  were  all  baptized,  whether 
Jews  or  Greeks,  slaves  or  free  men."  Now  if 
they  had  given  it  to  us  literally  (they  have  al- 
most done  it  in  their  final  version)  they  would 
have  made  it  plain  that  Paul  had  in  mind  the 
Church  as  the  body  of  Christ,  and  was  teaching 
that  by  a  spiritual  baptism  both  Jews  and 
Gentiles  were  being  made  members  of  that  body. 
"Baptism  into  Christ"  was  his  way  of  setting 
forth  that  change  which,  after  Jesus  and  John 
and  Peter  and  James,  we  call  regeneration  and 
conversion. 

Paul  thought  of  the  Israelites  as  so  brought 
under  the  personality  of  Moses,  by  means  of  their 
night's  experience  in  the  Red  Sea,  that  they  be- 
came, as  it  were,  members  of  his  body.  On  the 
Eigyptian  side  of  the  sea  they  had  been  faith- 
less, rebellious,  ready  to  renounce  his  will  and 
leadership  altogether ;  but  by  means  of  their  pas- 
sage on  dry  ground  through  the  midst  of  that 
Sea,  which  he  had  been  instrumental  in  securing 
for  them,  they  lost  their  will  in  his,  so  far  forth 
as  that  will  had  to  do  with  the  journey  upon 
which  they  had  set  out.  Just  so,  too,  the  be- 
liever in  Christ,  "whether  Jew  or  Greek,  slave  or 
free  man,"  was  conceived  of  by  Paul  as  having 


CONCLUSION  401 

parted  with  his  old  self-centered  individuality 
and  come  into  the  very  body  of  Christ  to  know 
his  will  and  that  alone;  and  he  taught  that  this 
change  was  effected  by  a  baptism  of  the  Holy 
.Spirit.  It  was,  of  course,  this  spiritual  trans- 
formation in  its  ideal  perfection,  rather  than  as 
it  actually  stood  revealed  in  the  individual  be- 
liever that  Paul  had  in  his  mind  when  he  produced 
these  passages,  but  it  is  scarcely  open  to  doubt 
that  the  image  which  was  present  to  his  thinking 
all  the  while,  was  the  one  we  have  indicated.  But 
if  so,  no  paraphrase  of  any  sort  can  do  anything 
but  mislead.  "Baptized  into  one  body,  into 
Christ,  into  Moses,"  are  words  which  present  the 
very  image  of  the  thing  as  no  other  words  can. 

The  unhappy  looseness  of  these  renderings  of 
the  Twentieth  Century  revisers  probably  repre- 
sents a  failure  on  their  part  to  perceive  that  the 
Pauline  doctrine  of  baptismal  regeneration  is  re- 
generation by  the  Holy  Spirit,  considered  entirely 
apart  from  water  baptism.  No  New  Testament 
writer  ever  described  water  baptism  as  baptism 
into  a  body  or  person.  The  apostles  baptized 
by  water,  not  "into  Jesus  Christ,"  but  "into  the 
Name  or  Faith  of  the  Lord  Jesus"  (Acts  8:16, 
19:5;  Matt.  28:19),  as  the  Master  Himself  had 
told  them  they  should.  They  knewi  that  its  effect 
was  only  that  of  entitling  the  person  baptized  to 
bear  the  Christian  name  and  share  in  the  Chris- 
tian privileges  and  responsibilities  of  the  time; 
that  its  effect  was  churchly  as  distinguished  from 


402  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

spiritual,  outward  and  ritual  and  not  inward  and 
heart-transforming.  It  was  in  view  of  this  fact 
that  Paul  was  inspired  to  represent  the  Holy 
Spirit's  regenerating  work  as  a  baptism  "into 
Jesus  Christ," — a  baptism  of  Jews  and  heathens- 
of  every  class  "into  one  body."  And  thus,  as 
the  writer  of  Hebrews  shows  us,  there  came  to  be 
a  doctrine,  not  of  baptism  but  "of  baptisms" 
(Heb.  6:2),  which  was  too  high  and  difficult  for 
the  average  member  of  the  apostolic  church,  and 
which  he  felt  compelled  on  that  account  to  pass 
by.  Another  doctrine,  however,  speedily  arose  in 
its  place,  from  which  the  church,  as  a  whole,  has 
never  yet  been  able  to  free  herself. 

Nothing,  however,  even  in  theology,  has  been 
really  settled,  that  has  not  been  settled  logically 
and  scientifically,  that  is  to  say,  in  view  of  the 
actual  facts.  For  after  all  has  been  said,  it  will 
be  found  that  the  human  mind  was  not  built  in 
two  sections,  one  of  which  was  indissolubly  linked 
with  the  reasoning  faculty,  while  the  other  was 
not.  The  difference  between  a  baptized  child  and 
an  unbaptized  one,  as  shown  by  their  later  de- 
velopment, is  appreciable  only  to  those  who  have 
the  dogma  of  regeneration  through  baptism  by 
water  to  maintain,  and  have,  therefore,  passed 
judgment  upon  the  matter  beforehand,  leaving 
no  room  for  any  real  examination  into  it.  To 
say  this,  however,  is  not  to  deny  that  infant 
baptism  is  desirable,  but  only  to  assert  that 
baptism  by  water  is  not  the  heaven-appointed 


CONCLUSION  403 

means  for  bringing  us,  either  in  our  infancy  or 
our  later  years,  into  saving  relations  with  the 
atonement  of  Christ.  Baptism  by  water  is  the 
sign  and  seal  of  the  fact  that  those  to  whom  it 
is  administered,  whether  infants  or  adults,  have 
been  definitely  acknowledged  by  the  Church  as 
belonging  to  Christendom,  and  as  therefore  en- 
titled to  the  church's  special  care,  instruction  and 
discipline.  Whether  such  a  baptized  individual, 
infant  or  adult,  is  spiritually  regenerated  or  not, 
is  a  question  that  must  be  determined  by  spiritual 
and  not  ritual  tests,  as  the  whole  church  of  Christ 
will  acknowledge  the  moment  she  has  in  her  en- 
tirety abandoned  irrational  dogma  for  sound  doc- 
trine, which,  while  it  may  transcend  present 
definite  knowledge,  never  flatly  contradicts  either 
reason  or  fact.  The  genuinely  Christian  posi- 
tion is  that  all  infants  possess  spiritual  life 
through  Christ,  as  the  Second  Adam,  at  birth, 
and  that  this  life  may  be  lost  by  them,  and  also 
restored  by  the  original  giver  during  the  years 
of  personal  responsibility  which  come  later;  and 
that  all  our  Lord's  saving  work  is  accomplished 
spiritually  and  not  ritually.  Baptism  and  the 
Lord's  Supper  are  teaching  ordinances,  and 
they  are  greatly  helpful  in  that  way  but  in  no 
other. 

The  point  we  have  been  preparing  to  make  is 
this.  If  the  prepossessions  of  the  Twentieth 
Century  revisers  led  them  away  from  Paul's  idea 
every  time  they  touched  his  doctrine  of  spiritual 


404  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

baptism,  we  may  be  pardoned  for  fancying  that 
they  made  a  like  blunder  when  they  came  to  deal 
with  that  word  of  John  which  we  have  had  under 
our  notice.  They  represent  him  as  having  twice 
declared  "these  are  the  last  days,"  whereas  the 
literal  thing  he  said  twice  was  "this  is  the  last 
hour."  May  it  not  have  been  that  the  letter 
was  written  during  the  year  70  just  before  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  that  the  apostle 
who  so  loved  to  dwell  upon  the  fact  of  his  Lord's 
coming,  and  so  earnestly  prayed  for  it,  saw  when 
he  wrote,  that  it  was  indeed  the  church's  "last 
hour"  of  waiting  for  that  event,  and  also  the  last 
hour  of  respite  for  her.  Jewish  foes.  At  least  his 
manner  of  statement  is  graphic  enough  and 
solemn  enough  for  that. 

If  on  the  other  hand,  however,  the  date  of  this 
letter  should  ever  be  definitely  proved  to  have 
been  later  than  the  year  70,  it  will  not  then  be 
forgotten  that  the  word  "hour,"  like  the  word 
"day,"  can  be  used  to  represent  an  era  or  time- 
period,  and  it  will  be  understood  that  John  was 
teaching  in  this  passage  that  the  presence  of  so 
many  Antichrists  in  the  world  was  a  strong 
proof  that  Christ  Himself  was  here  to  be  op- 
posed, that  he  had  come  and  was  present  among 
men  'to  carry  on  to  its  completion  every  under- 
taking connected  with  his  great  work  of  redeem- 
ing our  race;  and  because  he  could  not  fail  in 
any  respect  as  those  who  were  before  him  had 
done,  there  would  be  nothing  for  another  to  un- 


CONCLUSION  405 

dertake  when  he  had  finished.  He  was  the  Christ, 
the  King  crowned  by  God  for  the  whole  race,  and 
the  whole  race,  recognizing  him  as  supreme  in 
character,  would  eventually  unite  to  crown  Him 
on  its  own  account. 

Therefore,  wrote  John,  this  is  the  final  era 
of  human  redemption,  it  is  the  very  last  hour 
that  will  be  needed. 

The  first  question  still  remains  to  be  dealt  with. 
It  is  this : — If  Paul  really  believed  in  all  these 
things,  and  entertained  these  lively  expectations ; 
if  he  believed  that  our  Lord  was  coming  as  Judge 
in  connection  with  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem ; 
that  the  resurrection  of  the  righteous  dead  at 
least  would  take  place  then ;  and  that  all  the 
righteous  then  living  and  their  successors 
through  generation  after  generation  would  put 
on  spiritual  bodies  while  they  were  still  living  in 
the  flesh,  till  at  length  a  painless  and  blissful 
absorption  of  the  "animal"  by  the  "spiritual," 
would,  in  a  world  that  had  become  wholly  right- 
eous at  last,  bring  to  a  final  end  the  long  and 
horrible  reign  of  disease  and  death:  if  he  really 
believed  and  taught  all  these  things  and  was 
joined  in  part  at  least  by  the  other  New  Testa- 
ment writers,  how  did  it  come  to  pass  that  prac- 
tically no  trace  of  this  creed  of  his  is  to  be  found 
in  Christian  literature  outside  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment itself?  This  question  can  be  answered  with 
perfect  frankness,  and  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
satisfy  every  reasonable  mind. 


406  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

That  a  given  thing  has  not  been  grasped  or 
fully  understood  is  no  proof  that  it  has  never 
been  clearly  offered  as  a  matter  of  definite  in- 
struction to  any  responsible  body  of  men.  To 
readers  of  the  New  Testament  this  should  seem 
like  a  very  ordinary  statement.  Jesus  knew 
how  to  present  an  idea  accurately;  how  to  state 
a  fact  plainly.  Yet  there  were  two  things  at 
least,  which  he  failed  to  make  his  immediate  dis- 
ciples comprehend — that  he  was  actually  to  go 
to  the  cross  and  rise  again  from  the  dead ;  and 
that  his  kingdom  was  not  immediately  to  assume 
a  political  form,  with  Himself  as  its  visible  king. 
He  so  many  times  assured  them  that  he  would 
be  crucified,  that  Matthew  introduces  the  subject 
with  the  remark  that  "at  this  time  Jesus  Christ 
began  to  explain  to  his  disciples  that  he  must 
go  to  Jerusalem,  and  undergo  much  suffering  at 
the  hands  of  the  Councilors,  and  Chief  Priests, 
and  teachers  of  the  law,  and  be  put  to  death,  and 
rise  on  the  third  day."  (Matt.  16:21.)  And 
Matthew  goes  on  to  say  that  these  words  were 
so  well  understood  by  the  disciples  that  Peter  at 
once  went  so  far  as  to  deny  their  accuracy  to  the 
Master's  very  face,  and  was  by  our  Lord  ad- 
dressed as  "Satan"  for  his  perverse  attempt  to 
shut  out  the  truth  and  hinder  in  a  wrongful  way 
the  coming  to  pass  of  the  stupendous  event  itself. 
But  Peter's  perversity  of  intellect  continued  in 
spite  of  the  severity  of  Jesus'  rebuke.  And  he 
was  no  worse  than  the  rest,  for  they  were  all 


CONCLUSION  407 

equally  deaf  and  blind,  as  the  whole  of  the  later 
story  proves. 

Perhaps  our  Lord's  word  about  Mary,  the 
sister  of  Lazarus,  keeping  or  having  kept  that 
box  of  spikenard  which  she  opened  at  the  feast 
which  was  given  in  his  honor  a  week  before  his 
death,  for  the  day  of  his  burial,  indicates  that 
she  had  become  convinced  that  he  was  really  to 
die.  (Jno.  12:7,  8.)  But  if  so,  she  stands  out 
as  the  one  solitary  exception  to  the  general  fail- 
ure to  accept  his  teaching  on  the  subject  as 
literally  true.  And  so  persistent  was  their  in- 
capacity for  taking  in  the  real  nature  of  the 
kingdom  he  was  to  set  up,  that  "on  one  occasion 
when  the  apostles  had  met  together,"  after  his 
resurrection  and  just  prior  to  his  ascension, 
"they  asked  Jesus  this  question, — 'Master,  is 
this  the  time  when  you  intend  to  reestablish  the 
kingdom  for  Israel?'  '  And  he,  in  pity  for  their 
blindness,  withheld  the  direct  answer,  which  would 
have  proved  a  stumbling-block  to  them,  and 
gave  them  one  which  guided  their  thoughts 
heavenward  and  prepared  them  for  a  more  com- 
plete entrance  into  his  kingdom  on  their  own 
behalf. 

This  power  of  his  to  comprehend  and  adapt 
Himself  to  their  limitations  stands  revealed  in 
these  last  wonderful  words  of  his  to  them  just 
before  he  led  them  to  Gethsemane, — "I  have  still 
much  to  say  to  you,  but  you  cannot  bear  it  now. 
But  when  he, — the  Spirit  of  Truth — comes,  he 


408  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

will  guide  you  into  all  Truth;  for  he  will  not 
speak  on  his  own  authority  but  will  speak  all 
that  he  hears;  and  he  will  tell  you  of  the  things 
that  are  to  come.  He  will  honor  me;  because  he 
will  take  of  what  is  mine,  and  will  tell  it  to  you. 
Everything  that  the  Father  has  is  mine;  that  is 
why  I  said  that  he  takes  of  what  is  mine,  and 
will  tell  it  to  you."  (Jno.  16:12-15.) 

But  as  Jesus  had  to  adapt  his  teachings  to  the 
comprehension  of  his  followers ;  and  even  then 
failed  to  get  into  their  minds  some  of  the  things 
which  he  taught,  so  was  it  also  with  the  apostles 
after  the  promised  Holy  Spirit  had  made  them 
in  their  turn  the  divinely  inspired  instructors  of 
their  fellowmen. 

Paul  writes  to  the  Corinthians:  "But  I, 
Brothers,  could  not  speak  to  you  as  men  with 
spiritual  insight  but  only  as  worldly  minded — 
mere  infants  in  the  Faith  of  Christ.  I  fed  you 
with  milk,  not  with  solid  food,  for  you  were  not 
then  able  to  take  it."  (1  Cor.  3:1-2.) 

In  writing  to  Titus  he  declared :  "There  are  in- 
deed, many  unruly  persons,  great  talkers  who  de- 
ceive themselves.  ...  It  was  a  Cretan — one 
of  their  own  teachers — who  said:  'Cretans  are 
always  liars,  base  brutes,  and  gluttonous  idlers'; 
and  his  statement  is  true.  Therefore,  rebuke 
them  sharply,  so  that  they  may  be  sound  in  the 
faith." 

And  this  inability  to  receive  truth  readily  and 
hold  it  purely  was  omnipresent  in  the  church, 


CONCLUSION  409 

just  as  one  might  have  anticipated;  for  how  could 
these  Jews  and  heathens  have  got  rid  all  at  once 
of  the  whole  vast  mass  of  puerilities  and  super- 
stitious absurdities,  which  had  made  up,  as  one 
might  say,  the  very  warp  and  woof  of  their  think- 
ing; and  have  risen  out  of  the  debasing  ma- 
terialism in  which  for  ages  they  had  been  steeped, 
to  enter  immediately  into  the  full  comprehension 
of  all  the  spiritual  facts  pertaining  to  Christian- 
ity? The  thing  was  impossible. 

The  letter  of  Jude  is  largely  a  description  of 
and  warning  against  "certain  godless  people" 
who  had  "crept"  into  the  church,  and  become  a 
peril  to  its  very  existence ;  who  "malign  what- 
ever they  do  not  understand;  while  they  use  such 
things  as  they  know  by  instinct  (like  the  animals 
that  have  no  reason)  for  their  own  corruption." 
(Jude  4,  10.)  The  reason,  these  people  were  such 
a  peril  to  the  church,  was  that  the  body,  taken 
as  a  whole,  was  so  ignorant  and  unspiritual. 
Consequently  the  writer  of  our  New  Testament 
letter  to  the  Hebrews,  declared  to  those  whom  he 
addressed — 

"Now  on  this  subject  I  have  much  to  say,  but 
it  is  difficult  to  explain  it  to  you,  because  you  have 
shown  yourselves  so  slow  to  learn.  For,  while 
considering  the  time  that  has  elapsed,  you  ought 
to  be  teaching  others;  you  still  need  someone  to 
teach  you  the  very  alphabet  of  the  divine  revela- 
tion, and  need  again  to  be  fed  with  'milk'  instead 
of  with  'solid  food'.  .  .  .  For  every  one  who 


410  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

still  has  to  take  'milk'  knows  nothing  of  the 
Teaching  of  Righteousness;  he  is  a  mere  infant. 
But  'solid  food'  is  for  Christians  of  mature  faith 
— those  whose  faculties  have  been  trained  by  prac- 
tice to  distinguish  right  from  wrong.  There- 
fore, let  us  leave  behind  the  elementary  teaching 
about  the  Christ  and  press  on  to  perfection,  not 
always  laying  over  again  a  foundation  of  re- 
pentance for  a  lifeless  formality,  of  faith  in  God 
— teaching  concerning  baptisms  and  the  laying 
on  of  hands,  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  and  a 
final  judgment.  Yes,  and  with  God's  help,  so 
we  will."  (Heb.  5:11-6:3.) 

How  clearly  these  words  reveal  the  fact  that 
upon  these  very  subjects  with  which  we  have  been 
dealing,  the  apostolic  leaders  of  thought  found 
it  most  difficult  to  produce  accurate  impressions. 
So  impossible  had  the  task  become  in  his  time 
that  this  writer  tells  those  whom  he  had  set  out  to 
instruct,  that  for  the  present  at  least  he  must 
simply  avoid  "teaching  concerning  baptisms  and 
the  laying  on  of  hands,  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead  and  a  final  judgment." 

Peter  very  plainly  tells  us  the  reason.  Paul, 
he  says,  had  undertaken  the  task  with  such  poor 
results,  that  it  was  about  as  well  to  let  the  sub- 
ject drop  till  the  church  grew  wiser  and  more 
spiritual.  If  in  addition  to  all  this  it  should, 
contrary  to  much  learned  expectation,  turn  out 
in  the  end  that  the  author  of  "Hebrews"  was  no 
less  a  personage  than  Paul  himself,  his  refraining 


CONCLUSION  411 

from  these  subjects  which  were  so  familiar  and 
so  dear  to  him,  will  appear  still  more  significant ; 
for  it  would  then  be  seen  that  the  church  had 
proved  herself  so  incapable  of  understanding 
them,  that  their  very  chiefest  exponent  had  to 
abandon  them  in  his  public  teaching. 

But  let  us  see  just  how  Peter  makes  his  point 
touching  Paul's  failure  here — 

"The  day  of  the  Lord  will  come  like  a  thief; 
and  on  that  day  the  heavens  will  pass  away  with 
a  crash — the  elements  will  be  burnt  up  and  dis- 
solved, and  the  earth  and  all  that  is  in  it  will  be 
disclosed.  Now,  since  all  these  things  are  in  the 
process  of  dissolution,  think  what  you  yourselves 
ought  to  be — what  holy  and  pious  lives  you  should 
lead,  while  you  await  and  hasten  the  Day  of 
God.  At  its  coming  the  heavens  will  be  dis- 
solved in  fire,  and  the  elements  melted  by  heat, 
but  we  look  for  'new  heavens  and  a  new  earth,' 
where  righteousness  shall  have  its  home,  in  ful- 
fillment of  the  promise  of  God. 

"Therefore,  dear  friends,  in  expectation  of 
these  things,  make  every  effort  to  be  found  by 
him  spotless,  blameless,  and  at  peace.  Regard 
our  Lord's  forbearance  as  your  only  hope  of 
Salvation.  This  is  what  our  dear  Brother  Paul 
wrote  to  you,  with  the  wisdom  that  God  gave 
him.  It  is  the  same  in  all  his  letters,  when  he 
speaks  in  them  about  these  subjects.  There  are 
some  things  in  them  difficult  to  understand,  which 
untaught  and  weak  people  distort,  just  as  they 


A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

do  all  other  writings,  to  their  own  Ruin."  (2 
Pet.  3:10-16.) 

It  would  almost  seem  that  this  confession  of 
Peter  that  some  of  the  things  Paul  advanced  on 
these  themes  were  "difficult  to  understand,"  must 
be  taken  to  prove  that  he  himself  was  unable  to 
spell  his  way  completely  through  them.  And 
this  need  not  disturb  us.  There  is  what  we  may 
call  an  economy  about  God's  way  of  revealing  the 
great  facts  of  human  redemption.  And  it  may 
well  have  been  that  in  that  economy  Paul  was  the 
only  man  who  was  inspired  to  see  all  the  way 
along  the  divine  processes  to  their  very  end. 

If  a  man  stands  alone  in  his  inspiration,  his 
inspiration  is  greater,  not  less,  because  of  that. 
Failure  to  get  one's  message  understood  may 
prove  the  same  thing.  It  requires  no  inspiration 
at  all  to  tell  the  things  everybody  knows.  And 
the  farther  one  goes  beyond  his  fellows  in  the 
things  he  is  given  to  see,  the  fewer  there  will  be 
who  will  be  able  to  follow  him  at  all. 

The  question, — Was  he  understood?  is  im- 
portant historically,  but  not  exegetically.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  question, — How  was  he 
understood?  The  one  inquiry  that  really  mat- 
ters from  the  standpoint  of  interpretation  is — 
What  was  it  precisely  that  he  set  out  to  teach? 
And  this  is  the  question  which  we  have  been  ask- 
ing in  the  presence  of  our  Lord,  and  of  the  New 
Testament  writers,  throughout  our  present  un- 
dertaking. 


CONCLUSION  415 

We  may  now  note  afresh  some  of  the  things 
which  have  come  within  our  view  during  the  prog- 
ress of  this  discussion.  We  have  seen  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  as  Royal  Judge  condemning  and 
overthrowing  all  the  opposers  of  his  kingdom, 
until  none  remained  to  hinder,  and  his  people 
filled  the  whole  earth.  We  have  looked  upon  his 
march  as  deliverer  from  death,  and  seen  him 
raising  the  dead  and  changing  the  living,  till  at 
length  what  was  mortal  in  men  no  longer  fell  into 
decay  but  was,  on  the  contrary,  "absorbed  in 
Life"  (II  Cor.  5:4),  and  even  "nature"  itself 
escaped  "from  its  enslavement  to  decay  and  at- 
tained to  the  freedom  which  will  mark  the  glory 
of  the  children  of  God."  (Rom.  8:21.)  He 
has  also  appeared  before  us  as  a  complete  Savior, 
and  we  have  seen  him  leading  his  people  up  to 
the  heights  of  knowledge  and  holiness  "until  they 
reached  the  ideal  man — the  full  standard  of  the 
perfection  of  the  Christ" ;  and  every  activity  of 
theirs,  social,  political,  and  churchly,  harmonized 
with  the  divine  requirements. 

The  story  is  that  of  an  evolution — an  evolu- 
tion through  Christ.  ,He  came  as  the  Creator 
of  a  new  order,  or,  if  anyone  prefers  it,  as  the 
restorer  and  upbuilder  of  the  original  order, 
which  the  fall  of  our  race  arrested  at  its  very 
inception.  He  came  as  the  Father  of  an  age, 
and  of  an  order  in  which  the  spiritual  was  at 
length  to  absorb  or  swallow  up  the  animal,  and 
even  the  material  as  we  commonly  use  the  term. 


A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

He  took  upon  him  our  animal  nature,  but  with- 
out fulfilling  its  chief  function — that  of  beget- 
ting others  to  succeed  him.  His  life  belonged  to 
the  realm  of  the  spiritual,  and  because  it  was 
lived  on  that  plane  with  a  perfect  persistence, 
all  of  him  that  was  material  and  mortal  was 
lifted  to  the  same  height.  Then  he  proceeded  to 
draw  up  the  race  of  mankind  after  him — slowly, 
as  became  the  author  of  those  patient  processes 
in  nature,  which  we  have  learned  to  call  by  the 
name  of  evolution,  but  surely  and  triumphantly. 
According  to  the  New  Testament,  this  process  is 
to  move  along  all  the  lines  of  our  nature  and  its 
activities,  till  his  words  that  are  "spirit"  and 
"life"  have  by  their  might  transmuted  and  trans- 
formed all  things  into  their  own  nature  and  like- 
ness. 

How  full  of  significance  in  view  of  all  this  are 
those  words  which  our  Lord  addressed  to 
Martha,  when  he  said — 

"I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life.  He  that 
believes  in  me  shall  live  though  he  die;  and  he 
who  lives  and  believes  in  me  shall  never  die." 
Jesus  was  guilty  here  of  no  poor  play  on  words. 
He  was  not  juggling  with  our  human  speech. 
On  the  contrary,  he  was  revealing  by  means  of 
it  more  than  Martha  or  anyone  who  listened  to 
him  then  was  prepared  to  take  in.  Later  John, 
at  least,  took  in  enough  of  their  significance  to 
record  them  for  the  church's  instruction  and 
benefit. 


CONCLUSION  415 

"The  life"  is  much  more  than  "the  resurrec- 
tion," and  to  die  and  rise  again  is  to  enjoy  a 
poor  victory  compared  with  theirs  who  "will  never 
die  at  all"  because  Christ's  spirit  and  life  will 
have  made  them  immortal.  Our  Lord  opened  up 
before  Martha  the  whole  long  vista  of  the  re- 
deeming years,  that  she  might  look  upon  their 
crowning  triumph. 

We  may  also  read  the  fourteenth  chapter  of 
John  in  the  light  of  this  revelation.  "My 
Father's  Home" — What  is  that  but  the  place 
where  all  his  children  are?  So  it  must  be  here 
as  well  as  yonder.  It  was  to  men  who  were  to 
stay  here  and  do  and  suffer,  that  he  brought  for- 
ward the  facts  concerning  it  as  a  source  of  pres- 
ent comfort  and  inspiration.  His  words  were  to 
the  eleven  disciples,  and  to  us  only  after  them, 
and  the  things  he  promised  were  to  be  realized 
by  them  very  early,  there  in  Jerusalem  largely, 
and  not  elsewhere  at  the  close  of  unnumbered 
millenniums. 

"In  my  Father's  home  there  are  many  dwell- 
ings"— many  dwellings.  You  are  in  one  of  them 
now,  but  it  is  a  very  poor  one  comparatively.  I 
live  in  a  much  better  one,  and  I  shall  introduce 
you  to  it. 

"I  am  going  to  prepare  a  place  for  you."  I 
am  going  to  the  Father  and  when  I  return  and 
take  you  to  be  with  me,  you  will  know  that  I  am 
in  union  with  the  Father,  that  you  are  with  me 
and  I  with  you  there,  and,  therefore,  that  here 


416  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

and  yonder  are  not  places  separated  from  each 
other  but  are  really  one  place,  one  Father's  home 
with  many  dwellings.  I  am  speaking  to  you  of 
spiritual  things.  You  «tre  as  yet  unspiritual, 
and  cannot  fully  understand  the  things  I  am  say- 
ing to  you.  It  is  first  of  all  a  matter  of  spiritual 
revealings  which  cannot  be  detected  by  the  bodily 
senses.  The  Holy  Spirit  will  come.  The  Father 
will  send  him,  and  he  will  bring  it  all  to  pass. 
Your  love  for  me  will  be  so  fully  awakened  that 
you  will  do  or  dare  anything  that  I  wish  you  to 
undertake  or  face.  Then  the  Father  and  I  my- 
self will  stand  revealed  in  your  consciousness,  and 
you  will  be  most  definitely  aware  of  our  presence 
with  you  and  all  about  you,  and  will  rejoice  as 
never  before,  and  that  even  when  you  are  expe- 
riencing hardships  and  perils.  The  Holy  Spirit, 
too,  will  reveal  himself  to  you  in  his  own  person- 
ality, and  you  will  find  that  you  have  indeed  been 
taken  to  dwell  where  I  am,  that  is,  in  the  Father 
Himself,  as  the  primary  source  of  all  life  and 


"I  shall  return."  When  was  this  word  ful- 
filled ?  After  his  resurrection  visibly  ;  at  Pente- 
cost invisibly  and  spiritually,  but  more  gloriously 
than  before;  at  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem 
triumphantly  against  persecuting  Judaism  and 
to  raise  from  the  dead  those  who  had  fallen 
asleep  in  Him  before  that  time,  to  introduce  all 
true  believers  then  living  to  that  change  which 
corresponds  to  the  resurrection,  and  thencefor- 


CONCLUSION  417 

ward   to    carry    on   his    work   till   all   was    done. 

"In  truth  I  tell  you,  he  who  believes  in  me  will 
himself  do  the  work  I  am  doing;  and  he  will  do 
greater  work  still,  because  I  am  going  to  the 
Father." 

The  ages  of  redemption  with  all  their  wealth 
of  achievement  and  blessing  for  the  race,  as  these 
were  anticipated  by  the  apostles,  were  before 
Jesus  when  he  uttered  these  words ;  and  they  alone 
could  justify  them.  But  it  will  be  seen  when  all 
has  been  accomplished,  that  Jesus  had  to  take 
a  somewhat  lowly  place  as  a  worker  in  the  inter- 
ests of  our  humanity,  when  he  was  here  in  the 
flesh.  He  could  cure  disease  then,  but  he  could 
not  banish  it.  He  could  raise  the  dead,  but  he 
could  not  deliver  men  from  the  necessity  of  dy- 
ing, nor  provide  them  with  spiritual  bodies  in 
which  to  quit  their  animal  ones.  He  could  not 
even  escape  death  Himself.  Neither  could  He, 
on  the  other  hand,  lift  the  veil  of  ignorance  and 
lead  men  on  to  perfect  knowledge.  Nor  could  he 
transform  the  social  and  political  conditions  in 
the  midst  of  which  he  lived.  All  these  greater 
things  were  left  to  be  accomplished  by,  or,  rather, 
through  those  who  should  believe  on  Him  during 
the  long  series  of  generations  which  was  to  fol- 
low, and  which  has  probably  even  now  been  only 
well  begun.  But  these  greater  things  were  all 
to  be  done,  and  will  yet  all  be  worked  out  in  the 
manner  which  the  Holy  Spirit  has  indicated  in 
the  New  Testament,  where  he  has  according  to 


418  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

the  Lord's  further  promise,  told  us  "of  the  things 
that  are  to  come." 

Have  any  of  these  things  actually  arrived? 
They  certainly  have.  And  they  continue  to  come 
with  comparative  rapidity.  The  old  tyrannies 
and  human  slavery  which  Jesus  could  not  touch 
at  all,  excepting  from  a  distance,  by  means  of 
his  great  principles  of  the  brotherhood  of  man 
and  the  true  law  of  service,  have  been  directly 
faced  and  fought  by  his  followers,  till  they  are 
now  all  but  exterminated.  Great  strides  have 
been  made  in  the  application  of  the  divine  law 
touching  the  marriage  relation  and  family  life. 
Commerce  has  been  vastly  improved.  War  has 
been  largely  stripped  of  its  horrors,  and  has  it- 
self become  so  abhorrent  to  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness that  it  cannot  survive  through  many 
centuries  more.  The  vice  of  drunkenness  is  now 
being  combated  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the 
physiological,  as  well  as  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  effects  produced  by  alcohol,  so  that  it 
it  is  at  last  clearly  doomed.  Philanthropies  have 
multiplied  and  are  multiplying,  and  among  the 
most  striking  of  them  are  the  philanthropies  of 
war.  The  churches  are  everywhere  moving  along 
the  lines  indicated  by  our  Lord  in  his  prayer  that 
all  his  followers  might  be  one.  Christendom 
carries  what  remains  of  the  heathen  world  upon 
its  heart.  "The  white  man's  burden"  has  as- 
sumed huge  dimensions,  for  it  is  really  the  burden 
of  Christ — poorly  borne  by  the  white  man  often, 


CONCLUSION  419 

yet  Christ's  burden  nevertheless.  Disease  and 
death  have  more  than  met  their  match  in  the  skill 
of  the  Christian  physician  and  surgeon,  and  are 
being  steadily  beaten  back.  The  average  life- 
time of  a  generation  in  Christian  lands  is  longer 
by  years  than  it  was  a  century  ago.  Deeds  of 
healing  are  done  daily  as  a  mere  matter  of  course, 
which  in  the  time  of  Christ  and  his  apostles  would 
have  been  looked  upon  as  miracles ;  and  the  only 
end  to  it  all  which  one  can  foresee  is  that  which 
our  Lord  Himself  foretold  and  made  not  only 
possible  but  certain. 

Finally  we  find  ourselves  living  to-day  in  the 
presence  of  the  invisible,  the  intangible  and  the 
incomprehensible,  and  compelled  to  regard  them 
as  at  once  the  mightiest  and  the  most  abiding. 

One  may  say  with  some  confidence  that  the  true 
story  of  the  material  universe,  and  of  our  own 
planet  in  particular,  is  simply  that  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  Life.  The  atom  lives  as  really  as  the 
glorified  Christ.  The  difference  between  them 
may  be  set  forth  in  two  ways  and  regarded  as 
either  a  difference  in  kind  or  a  difference  in  de- 
gree. Perhaps  the  theologian  will  prefer  the 
former  alternative,  but  the  scientist  will  choose  the 
latter.  The  first  manifestations  of  Life  are  pos- 
sibly still  with  us  in  the  unorganized  particles  of 
ether.  Is  there  somewhere  a  connecting  link  be- 
tween these  and  the  whirling,  dancing  electrons 
which  have  given  their  allegiance  to  the  center  of 
control  in  the  atom?  Just  what,  materially  con- 


420  A  RACE'S  REDEMPTION 

sidered,  is  the  center  of  control  itself?  One  asks 
also  by  what  means  such  variety  was  attained  in 
the  composition  of  atoms  to  form  the  elements, 
and  the  union  of  these  again  to  produce  the  multi- 
plied chemical  combinations  in  their  varying 
forms.  Whatever  the  answers  to  these  questions 
may  be  when  they  reach  us,  they  cannot  in  the 
least  alter  the  fact  that  all  these  steps  quite 
clearly  belong  to  the  same  upward  march  which 
we  follow  when  later  we  find  ourselves  in  the  com- 
pany of  the  plasma-cells  of  the  whole  vegetable 
and  animal  series.  The  first  processes  are  as  in- 
timately related  to  the  second  as  they  were  ab- 
solutely essential  to  their  beginning  and  mainte- 
nance. The  self-conscious,  too,  found  its  stepping 
stone  and  permanent  foundation  in  the  conscious, 
and  the  moral  sense,  or  individual  conscience,  in 
the  community  sense.  The  moral  sense  is  the 
highest  and  most  precious  development  of  com- 
mon sense.  The  unfailing  conscience  of  Jesus, 
too,  was  but  the  logical  outcome  of  the  whole  proc- 
ess in  that  direction,  just  as  the  human  intelli- 
gence fully  informed  for  all  terrestrial  require- 
ments, will  be  seen  to  be  the  logical,  the  natural 
and  the  necessary  outcome  of  the  evolution  of  in- 
tellect upon  our  planet,  the  moment  the  day  of 
even  one  such  gloriously  equipped  intellect  arrives 
in  connection  with  the  ever  growing  division  of 
labor  and  care  for  each  other  among  men.  So 
also  a  body  enduringly  worthy  of  Life  at  its  best 
in  men  and  permanently  desirable,  because  readily 


CONCLUSION  421 

adaptable  to  all  the  uses  they  may  have  for  it, 
will  be  looked  upon  as  the  one  and  only  suitable 
crown  or  culmination  of  the  whole  evolutionary 
progress  along  the  line  of  sentient  organisms. 
For,  given  perfect  housing  and  complete  equip- 
ment, Life,  as  it  appears  in  men,  can  have  no 
bounds  to  its  lofty  possibilities.  And  Life  at  its 
highest  in  self-conscious  individual  intellects  and 
consciences,  duly  developed  and  furnished,  must 
know  and  dwell  in  harmony  with  that  which  is 
above,  as  well  as  with  that  which  is  about  and 
beneath  it.  But  that  which  transcends  Life,  as 
it  appears  in  men,  is  that  Life's  Source  in  God 
himself.  Thus  all  Life  is  seen  to  be  the  one  Life 
in  various  phases  and  stages  of  manifestation. 
Science  passes  into  Theology  and  Theology  back 
again  into  Science,  so  that  from  whichever  side  of 
things  we  view  all,  we  see  the  God  who  "himself 
gives  to  all  life  and  breath  and  all  things,"  and 
know  that  "in  him  we  live  and  move  and  are." 
(Acts  17:25,  28.) 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Age,  Close  of  the,  312,  374, 

381 

Ahaz,  40 
Archetypal  Man,  Jesus  the, 

86 
Atonement,   Jesus   and   the, 

186 
Azazel,  246  seq. 

Baptism,  34,  35 

Baptism  Into  Christ, 
399  seq. 

Blood  of  Christ  His  Obedi- 
ence Unto  Death,  The, 
198-201 

Biblical  Ethics,  Jesus  and, 
270 

Call  of  Jesus,  The,  55,  76,  92 
Carpenter's  Shop,  The,  53 
Change,  The  Resurrectional, 

322  seq. 
Christ,  Jesus  Made  The,  92, 

93 
Church,    Jesus's    Love    for 

His,  182  seq.,  380 
Church,  Jesus  the  Redeemer 

of  His,  168 
Church    of    Christ,    Isaiah's 

and    Micah's    Visions    of 

the,  168  seq. 

Church  of  Christ  Made  Uni- 
versal, The,  381 
Church  of  Christ  Perfected, 

378  seq. 


Church  of  Christ  Not  in 
Lord's  Prayer,  165-6 

Church  of  Christ— Why  It 
Exists,  162,  167 

Clouds  that  Protect,  325, 
328 

Consciousness  of  Jesus, 
The,  45 

Consciousness  of  Jesus  Hu- 
man, The,  79 

Consciousness  of  Jesus  Not 
Dual,  The,  81 

Consciousness  of  Jesus  — 
Will  It  Endure?  The,  83 

Creator,  God  as,  22  seq., 
190,  193 

"Cruciality  of  the  Cross, 
The,"  187 


Death  of  Jesus  an  Awaken- 
ing Fact,  The,  255,  258 

Deliverer  from  Death,  Jesus 
the,  321 

Desert  Temptation,  The,  58- 
60,  72 

Destiny,  Jesus  and  Nation- 
al, 350 

Divorce,  Jesus  on,  131  seq. 

Disappointment,  Heart  of 
Jesus  Broken  by,  183 

Enduement  of  Jesus,  The, 
90  seq. 

Eschatology  of  Jesus,  The, 
301 


425 


426 


INDEX 


Eschatology,  The  Scheme  of 
Redemption  an,  388,  413 

Eschatology  of  New  Testa- 
ment —  Why  Misunder- 
stood, 410 

Ethical  Code  Denned, 
286 

Ethics  of  Bible  Incom- 
plete, 279,  283,  290 

Evolution,  Its  Limits,  98 

Exegesis,  Some  Principles 
of,  14  seq. 

Failure,  When  Jesus  Fore- 
saw, 173 

Fall  a  Racial  Fact,  The,  8 

Fasting  of  Jesus,  The,  59 

Forbearance,  God's,  26-7 

Forgiveness  a  Deliverance 
from  Sinning,  233 

Forgiveness  Brings  Self- 
Approval,  236,  241 

Forgiveness  Establishes 

Obedience  to  God,  233  seq. 

Forgiveness  Is  Through  Sur- 
render and  Consecration, 
218  seq. 

French  Revolution,  Jesus 
and  the,  119 

Forsyth,  Principal,  187,  224 

Gethsemane,  The  Cup  in, 
179  aeq.  \\ 

God  Is  Love,  140,  143 

Growth  of  Jesus,  The,  67 
seq. 

Guilt,  Our  Sense  of,  29,  32 

Haeckel,  Ernest,  2,  6 
Harnack,  Accepted,  8 


Heredity,  31,  45-50 

Home   Training    of    Jesus, 

50  seq. 
House,         The         Father's, 

415 

Inspiration  and  Revelation, 
6 

Ignorance  of  Jesus,  The, 
69  seq.,  106 

Immanuel,  38 

"Immortality,  The  Evolu- 
tion of,"  340 

Intercession,  The  Source  of, 
271 

Intercessor,  The  Holy  Spirit 
as,  277 

Jerusalem,  The  Destruction 

of,  358,  384 
Jesus  and  the  Holy  Spirit, 

85 

Jesus  Human,  103 
Jesus  Finite,  38,  417 
Jesus  —  His     Divinity    or 

Deity,  103,  105 
Jesus  and  the  Father,  56,  60, 

123,  136  seq. 
Jesus  the  Social   Reformer, 

117 

Jesus  as  Judge,  75,  351 
Jesus  and  War,  73,  75,  127- 

129,  140,  173,  364 
Jesus  Obedient  to  the  Fath- 
er, 68,   198 
Joseph  and  Mary,  47 
John  the  Baptist,  46,  56,  71, 

91 

Kingdom  and  Church  of 
Jesus,  The,  152 


INDEX 


427 


Kingdom  of  Christ— How 
Made  His,  153,  158 

Kingdom  of  Christ — How 
Long  to  Continue,  159 

Kingdom  of  Christ  Fin- 
ished, 381,  382 

Kingdom  of  God— What  It 
Is,  152-6,  263 

Kingdom  of  God  Gradually 
Developed,  379,  390 

ivingship  of  Christ,  301-5, 
350,  369 

Life,  5,  414,  419 
Life,  The  Holy  Spirit  as,  86, 
98,  99 

Making  of  Jesus,  The,  45 
Man    and    Nature    at    the 

Last,  382 
Mediator    and     Intercessor, 

Jesus,  the,  261 
Mediates,       What       Christ, 

264,  274 
Memory  in  Matter,  9-5 

Nature  Defined,  4 
Nature's  Eager  Expectation, 

333,  413 
Nazareth,  One  Good  Thing 

in,  54 
New  Earth,  375 

Oaths,  Jesus  on,  130 

Obedience  of  Jesus  —  Its 
Atoning  Value,  198  seq. 

Origin  of  Species,  The  Vir- 
gin Birth  as  Key  to,  100, 
footnote. 

Outcasts  of  Society,  Jesus' 
Plea  for  the,  133,  143 


Parthenogenesis  and  the 
Virgin  Birth,  94  seq. 

Patriotism  of  Jesus,  176,  184 

Paul  on  Christ  as  Deliverer 
from  the  Law,  284-5 

Perfect  Ethical  Code,  Jesus 
and  the,  294 

Personal  Equation  in  Mor- 
als, 282 

Prenatal  Influences  and 
Jesus,  48  seq. 

Priest,  The,  1,  119,  203  seq., 
232,  245,  248 

Prophet,  The,  1,  203  seq.t 
232,  249 

Propitiation,  196 


Race  and  Parentage  of 
Jesus,  45 

Redemption — Its  Scope,  10 
seq. 

Responsibility,  Human — Its 
Measure,  29,  32,  191-2, 
224-5 

Responsibility  of  the  Cre- 
ator, 20-27,  190  seq. 

Resurrection  and  "Last 
Day,"  319,  394,  399 

Resurrection  Craved  by 
Paul,  346 

Resurrection  of  the  Wicked, 
346 

Resurrection  Not  a  Visible 
Event,  The,  337 

Resurrection  Not  Resusci- 
tation, 329 

Righteousness,  God's,  20,  33, 
198 

Righteousness,  N.  T.  Writ- 
ers Assume  God's,  24 


428 


INDEX 


Sabbath,  Jesus  and  the, 
125,  147 

Sacrifice,  The  True  Idea  Set 

Forth,  228 
Sacrifice     of     Jesus  —  Why 

Final,  230 
Sacrificial  System,  Jesus  and 

the,  203 
Sacrificial    System,    Central 

Teaching  of  the,  226 
Salvation  —  How   Effected, 

201,  216,  258 
Salvation  Not  Spiritual,  A, 

314 

Saving  Faith,  221 
Savior,  Jesus  the  Complete, 

369 
Savior,   The  Jesus  Who   Is 

Our,  259 
Scene  of  Christ's  Toils  and 

Triumphs,  The,  9  seq.,  386 

seq. 
Science,  Our  Duty  Towards, 

2 

Second  Coming  of  Christ, 
The,  305,  391,  416 

Second  Coming  of  Christ, 
The  Manner  of  the,  357 

Second  Coming  Progres- 
sively Defined,  The,  355- 
359 

Second     Comings     Gradual, 

The,  359,  396 
Sign,  Jesus  a,  34 
Sin  Defined,  113 


Sin  and  Suffering  a  Mys- 
tery, 198 

Sin  and  the  Murder  of 
Jesus,  251  seq. 

Sin,  Jesus  and  the  Sense  of, 
232 

Sin,  Jesus  the  Bearer  Away 
of,  246 

Sin,  Man's  Enslavement  to, 
30 

Sin  Against  the  Holy  Spirit, 
The,  265  seq. 

Sin— When  to  the  Utter- 
most, 250 

Sinlessness  of  Jesus  De- 
scribed, The,  113  seq. 

Sinlessness  Not  Full-grown 
Perfection,  108 

Sonship  of  Jesus,  The  Di- 
vine, 136 

Substitutionary  Idea  Con- 
demned, 208,  225,  232 

Supper,  The  Lord's,  34,  35 

Suffering,  The  Ministry  of, 
60-63 

Synagogue  and  Jesus,  The, 
52 

Theology  of  Jesus  Theocen- 

tric,  The,  150 
Trinity,  The,  83,  85,  158 

War's  Place  in  God's  Plan, 

365 
"Wickedness         Incarnate," 

360 


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